00:00I appreciate you trying to pretend that I did.
00:02Let's go to Senator Hovind, please.
00:03Thank you, Madam Chair.
00:05Thanks for being here, Mr. Secretary.
00:07I appreciate it.
00:07I appreciate your service.
00:08Have you ever started any businesses and run any businesses?
00:12Yes.
00:13Have you served as a governor at any point in your career?
00:18Yes.
00:18In any of those positions, did you go in and work to find savings
00:22and also then put people and systems in place that actually,
00:27while saving money, enabled you to provide better services to your customers?
00:33Yes.
00:33Thank you, Senator Hovind.
00:34When I came into North Dakota, we had a $6 billion general fund,
00:39and we cut it by $1.7 billion, 27% the first four months I was in office.
00:44All the trains still ran on time, and we created more meaningful,
00:48more purposeful jobs for the people that work there.
00:50In fact, not only do you have a great love of the outdoors, you're a rancher,
00:54you like to hunt, but one of your specialties is finding and putting in place systems
00:59that actually improve the productivity of the workforce so you deliver better service
01:04at lower cost.
01:05That's one of the things you specialize in, isn't it?
01:08Well, I spent two and a half decades in the private sector developing software systems
01:12to do exactly that.
01:14Yeah.
01:14And so the other thing that would actually help you accomplish that
01:17and make sure there's more people in the parks
01:18and that the American citizens are better served is if you could actually get your management team
01:24in place, right, instead of having it held up for no good reason.
01:27So you just said, what, you've got one of 16 people that have to be confirmed,
01:30and we sit here voting in the middle of the night because nobody will let you get your team on board
01:34so you can do the very things that some here want to criticize you for?
01:38Would you say that's accurate?
01:40Yes.
01:40We have the first one starting next week of the executive leadership team.
01:45Yeah, so if somebody really wanted to help you get your team in place
01:47and make sure that service is getting done,
01:49it seems like they would want to help you get that team in place rather than hold it up.
01:52Wouldn't you think?
01:53Would that make sense to you?
01:54Yes.
01:55Okay.
01:57I know you're aware of the Advanced Training Center that we have at Camp Grafton,
02:02which is our National Guard facility in North Dakota, and that you've worked with it.
02:06And you're probably aware of the recent statistics of the more than 5,400 law enforcement BIA law enforcement officers trained.
02:183,000 of them got training at that facility, and so it supports Artesia in terms of getting BIA law enforcement officers trained up and on the job.
02:28And we only have in the Northern Plains about 50% of those staff positions filled, meaning almost a 50% vacancy rate.
02:35So my question to you is, will you work with us?
02:38And we've got the senator here from New Mexico, so he knows how important this issue is.
02:45But particularly for the Northern Plains and folks that live up there and want to stay up there,
02:49we've got to enhance this training and expand the course offerings.
02:54Are you willing to work in support of that?
02:57Yeah, absolutely.
02:58The next question I have is, we have wild horses in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
03:06I've got a bill in with Senator Cain, bipartisan.
03:08He has some experience with the horses out on the East Coast and in the parks there.
03:14It would make sure that it would require maintenance of a genetically diverse herd.
03:21In no event, less than 150 horses.
03:25Are you in support of that legislation?
03:27Yeah, absolutely.
03:29Talk to me about the public lands rule.
03:32Under the Biden administration, they sought to essentially put more than 245 million acres off limits of public land,
03:44off limits for any kind of energy development.
03:47For example, just an example, our state, that's 45% of the federal oil and gas acreage,
03:53and that's 99% of the federal coal acreage.
03:56That's just our state.
03:57Okay?
03:58So talk to me about the importance of addressing that rule, overhauling that rule,
04:06and making sure that we have access on behalf of, you know,
04:10and you can talk about the balance sheet here a little bit if you want in terms of our federal assets,
04:13for energy production on behalf of this country and, you know,
04:19one of your key roles in terms of energy development.
04:24Well, yes, Senator Hovind, striking hundreds of millions of acres off of the America's balance sheet
04:33was basically like stealing from our children and our children's children
04:37because all of those represent the opportunity to sustainably develop,
