00:00and thank you for the witnesses and your families for your service. Mr. Tell, you're a glutton for
00:06punishment. A lot of folks don't know you had your armed services confirmation hearing yesterday,
00:11so you did a great job in that one. So this should be a piece of cake. Thank you, Senator Selvin.
00:19By the way, in my state, I'm going to focus a lot on Alaska. I appreciated our meetings,
00:24Mr. Tell and Mr. McMaster. Hard to build anything in Alaska, right? You want to build a road,
00:32you know, a sidewalk, you usually get, you know, 12 radical far left environmental groups that sue
00:38to stop. We have the King Cove Road. We've only been trying to get that done for 40 years, a nine
00:44mile single lane gravel road that every Democrat in the country, including God rest his soul,
00:51Jimmy Carter writes op-eds, can't build a road in Alaska. So, and then it went so bad,
00:56we had the Biden administration's last frontier lockup. My great state suffered through 70
01:03executive orders and executive actions from the Biden administration singularly focused on
01:09Alaska. I like ripping this up because that's not the issue anymore. We now have President Trump
01:16who issued his day one executive order called unleashing Alaska's extraordinary resource
01:21potential. And Mr. Tell, as you and I discuss, there's a lot of great provisions in here. This
01:29is all about getting things done in Alaska, not crushing us as the radical left wants to do. And
01:36there's a really good provision about the Corps of Engineers. I'm going to read it to you.
01:41The Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, that's you, shall immediately review,
01:48revise, or rescind any agency action that may in any way hinder, slow, or otherwise delay any critical
01:59project in the state of Alaska. That's from the president. So, will you commit to abide by that
02:09very expansive provision to get things done in my great state after, you know, four years of
02:15being crushed by the previous administration? Senator Sullivan, absolutely. And when I visited
02:22your office, I tattooed the executive order that the president issued on Alaska on my heart.
02:30By the way, that's a great answer. And I will go ahead and read the second paragraph to you
02:35from memory, which essentially says that I shall, if confirmed, coordinate as closely with the governor
02:41of Alaska as any human could possibly coordinate. Good. And the senator from Alaska. Of course.
02:46Yeah. Okay. Just double check on that. We talked about the Juneau Glacial Lake outburst flooding.
02:55You want to talk about a unique issue in Alaska. We've had this flooding that pretty much happens now
03:01every summer. It's amazing. It hasn't killed anybody. And we need the Corps' help, right? This
03:08is a unique challenge. It's uniquely, the Corps is uniquely qualified to help us. You can't have
03:16flooding. I went and toured where this happened this past summer. Over 200 homes were flooded. This
03:22is, I mean, it's got to, we got to fix it. And the Corps initially said when I went to them,
03:28is that, well, Senator, we're going to work on this. We think it'll be 10 years to study and fix
03:31this. Say what? That is the wrong answer. Can you commit to me, and really importantly,
03:37the citizens of Juneau, Alaska, that the Corps is going to bring its best minds in a very,
03:43very rapid way to help address this unique challenge that we really need the Corps' help on?
03:50Senator Sullivan, thank you for the question. And I did fail to mention as a part of my answer
03:56to your previous question that Alaska is home to greater than 60% of the U.S.'s wetlands. And so
04:03it makes the work of the Corps of Engineers critically important. That's the need for the
04:07executive order. With regard to the glacial outbursts issue in Juneau, you rightly point out
04:11that this is an issue that is brand new, as far as I understand it to be, in terms of flood risk
04:18management. And it's going to require creativity. Yes, it is. And the Corps of Engineers was made to
04:23solve tough problems. And so I look forward to working with you, with the surrounding communities
04:27to try to solve this challenge. Great. Thank you. In an expedited manner, not 10 years. I mean,
04:32that's just... In an expedited manner, Senator. Thank you. You and I talked about the Ambler Road,
04:37the Port of Gnome. So I'll just submit questions for the record. The Port of Gnome has got bipartisan
04:44support. We don't have an Arctic port anywhere to push back on the Russian and Chinese aggression
04:49in my part of the state. That project, it's really important. We've got to get over the finish line.
04:55Can I get your commitment to work with me and the others in this committee on that project? And
05:00that's an interesting project. I mentioned you had your SASC hearing yesterday. That's EPW,
05:05and that's very much DOD, to be able to have Navy ships, icebreakers, be able to pull up to the
05:12Port of Gnome. We don't have a port in the Arctic right now that can handle Navy ships and icebreakers.
05:17Senator Sullivan, one of the most strategic issues that confronts the United States of America
05:22today is our status as an Arctic, an Antarctic nation. This is an area of the world that the
05:28Chinese Communist Party is very interested in. The Russians are very active. Your state is front
05:33and center to the United States of America's being an Arctic nation. We must be. And it seems to me that
05:41if we're going to be an Arctic nation, that Alaska ought to be one of the key launching points of
05:47that force projection and power projection and economic projection. And so I look forward to
05:52working with you to help make the case for the strategic nature of Alaska and the Port of Gnome
05:57as it relates to the United States asserting itself as an Arctic nation.
06:01Great. That's a great answer. I really appreciate your expertise on that. Finally,
06:05I'm going to submit, Madam Chair, for the record, a number of other questions. Just Mr. McMaster,
06:13I mentioned to you, we're a resource rich, infrastructure poor state. We have less road
06:20miles than Connecticut. And we're almost 120 times bigger. If Senator Whitehouse were here,
06:26I would say we're 491 times bigger than Rhode Island. He doesn't like when I say that, but it's
06:31true. So can I get your commitment to work with Alaska, this committee, our delegation on permitting
06:40reform, but also on just helping us build, right? We need more roads to resources. We need more roads
06:47to help our economy be stronger and that will help Alaska. But when you unlock the resources of Alaska,
06:52it helps America. Yes, Senator. Absolutely. I know the Federal Highway Administration has a strong
06:58partnership with state of Alaska. If I'm confirmed, I look forward to looking for ways to even
07:03strengthen that. And for the record, we also have a couple grants on infrastructure from the
07:09infrastructure bill that have been frozen. And I'd like to work with you and your team on just
07:15getting these unfrozen. I've talked to Secretary Duffy about it. But can I get your commitment on
07:18that as well? Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Senator Lummis.
07:23Thank you, Madam Chairman.
