Senate Standing Committee on Rules

Call the Rules Committee to order. And I know that we're expecting our Vice Chair any moment, so I'll go ahead and make some opening comments. Well, we don't have to do that long script anymore. We've changed a little bit of our way of operating in the new year. Her. But I will still say, for the benefit of our court reporter, to speak slowly and clearly.

And if you see her kind of looking at you to slow down or repeat, we'll just help make that happen, because we are keeping a record of a transcript. So I will go ahead at this point and ask our secretary to please establish a quorum and to call the role.

[Roll Call]

Thank you, Madam Secretary. And for the record, I will say we have Senator Wilk joining us today as a replacement for Senator Ochoa Bogue, who couldn't be here today. He has been on this Committee before. So we'll go forward without missing a beat. I am going to see if we can, before we call the first conference up, see if we can dispense with some business. I understand. On item number two, governor's appointees not required to appear. We may want to do a separate vote on that. Okay. I would ask for a motion to approve governor's appointees. Item two, C Ira lit to the Commission on teacher credentialing.

I would so move.

Thank you, Senator Laird. Madam Secretary, will you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Four to zero. I would entertain a motion for governor's appointees not required to appear on item 2d. Carl Chip Robertson, JD. As a Member of the University of California College of Law, San Francisco, the board of directors moved.

Yeah. And Madam Chair, I know him, and I never knew what his first name is, so I'm very grateful that it's here on the agenda. I'm going to tease him the next time I talk to him.

Well, I'm going to. Senator Wilk. No, you were first. Senator Wilk made the motion, noted for the record, that you now know his first name is Carl. We did that so you would know this Senator Laird. Madam Secretary, will you please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Five to zero. Wonderful. I would entertain a motion on item three, Bill referrals. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Five to zero. Thank you. On item four, this is Committee appointments. This would be to remove Senator Wahab and myself as Members of the Joint Committee on rules reducing the Committee's Senate membership from 16 to 14. This would align us with the Assembly's action. Just for the public benefit, I would ask for a motion. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Five to zero. Thank you. Item five would be our session schedule for 2024 to adopt.

So move.

Thank you. Senator Laird,

I'd like to make a comment before we vote.

Yes, Senator Wilk,

I'm so excited that. We're breaking before July 4 because I hate coming up here then flying home because that's a work day for Republicans. Work all day and all night, and then have to come back up here the next day. So thank you for the schedule this year. Very excited about that.

I'm changing my position on this.

Thank you. Obviously, it's the beginning of a new year. We have some very happy and enlightened Members of the Committee. It is a workday for Democrats as well. And with that, I forget who made the motion. Laird. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Five to zero. Thank you. And last, certainly, but not least, floor acknowledgments. We have items 67 and 8 which my colleagues can read. It's a lot to go through, but a motion.

Can we take all three together?

Yes. Six, seven and eight

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Wilk. And go call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Five to zero. So thank you, everyone, for your patience with that. We will go ahead and get started on governor's appointees that are required to appear. We have two. We'll go right to item a. And let me welcome up Lindsey Sin, the Secretary of California Department of Veterans Affairs. It's good to see you. Welcome. And as you're coming up, I will offer you to introduce yourself.

Please feel free to acknowledge anyone you would like to that is with you, and then make some opening comments, and then we'll go right to Members of the Committee for Comments and questions. Welcome.

Well, thank you so much. Good afternoon, Madam Pro Tem Atkins, Vice Chair Grove, and esteemed Members of the Senate Rules Committee. I guess I'll begin by saying, just to comment off of Senator Wilks comment about the 4 July. Because I typically work in Veterans Affairs on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, I do my best to try and take off Independence Day. I'm absolutely honored to be here today. I am the Governor's appointee for the position of Secretary for the California Department of Veterans Affairs.

I also have the distinction of being the first woman appointed as Secretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today to share my vision as well as answer any questions you may have. And I would like to say how much I appreciate the time that you've already taken with me, that your staff have taken with me in preparation for this confirmation hearing. Thank you so much.

First, I'd like to share a little bit about me and about why I sit before you today. Serving veterans is not just a career for me. It's also a passion and a calling, as you already are aware, most likely. I served eight years on active duty in the United States Navy. Go Navy. I had the opportunity to travel the world and work with each branch of our military. I also made lasting friendships with many of the people with whom I served.

I understand what it is to serve this country in uniform, and like many of my fellow veterans, I've also experienced the challenges of transitioning from the military and rebuilding my civilian life. Likewise, I also understand the value that our men and women in uniform bring to our local communities and most importantly, back here to California. When I was a newly minted civilian, I began the process of building a new life for myself, and after completing my bachelor's degree, I started working with veterans in higher education.

That's when I knew that I wanted to make this a permanent job and career path for me. So for the past 12 years, I've had the opportunity to work in various appointed positions at Calvet, including as deputy secretary for women veterans affairs and as deputy secretary for communications. I love working in state government, and I'm confident that my passion, my experiences, my leadership style, and eagerness to learn will set us up for continued success in the future.

But I don't do this work alone, and I'm grateful and optimistic that so many of our dedicated Calvet employees and my talented leadership team will make this next phase of our Department a period of successful growth and development as well. So, in closing, I'd like to thank Governor Newsom and this Administration for this opportunity, as well as my colleagues, both past and present, for their dedication to this work.

I'd also like to thank my family, most specifically, my husband, Matt, my two children, Maxwell, who is nine, and Charlie, who is seven, for their continued love and support. At this time, I'm happy to take any questions that you may have of me, and I appreciate your consideration.

Thank you very much. I am going to start with our Vice Chair, the one Member of this Committee that actually has served in the military. So, madam Vice Chair, go ahead.

Thank you. Madam Pro Tem. Thank you. I really enjoyed our time that we spent together. I really do admire you and what you've done. You've served in our United States military, put on a uniform, and then now you're still serving our veterans across the state. I love your heart and passion for the veterans that are in our state. Obviously, you're the Secretary, but I asked you kind of.

Not a silly question, but if you were queen for the day, because I realized that there's a process you have to follow now, but if you were queen for the day, what is the one thing that you would take care of for our veterans that seems to haunt us?

I appreciate that. Thank you, Senator Grove. I really appreciated our time together as well. And I'll share with this Committee. What I mentioned to Senator Grove is that I think the top two issues we're facing dealing with our veterans in California are the issues of housing and mental health. And to that end, I know the Governor shares those two goals as well. It's something that we want to work hard on in this Department to make sure we can address.

We've had great success with things like our Veterans housing and Homelessness Prevention program, which has built 3200 units over the last five or six years, awarding 94 developments to be able to house veterans in permanent supportive and transitional housing. We also now have the California Veterans Health Initiative, which is a $50 million initiative to look at the issue of veteran suicide and mental health for veterans and their families here in California.

I have a really talented team around me, and I know that these are top of mind goals to them, too. So I'm confident that we're going to be able to actually move the needle on some of these wish list items that I have.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm just going to take a point of personal privilege and score big points here by thanking my sweet friend Tina Phillips for serving the United States Navy as well. And then I'm going to turn it back over to the Madam Pro tem and she can pass it on to someone else. Thank you for your time and your service.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, madam Vice Chair. She always one ups me with my twin sister, Tina Phillips. And in fact, I think my twin sister Tina calls Madam Vice Chair more often than she calls me. So thank you. It's a veteran thing. I thank you for that. And I'm sure my sister is not watching us, but I will let her know. Let me turn it over to Senator Smallwood-Cuevas to continue the comments and questions.

Thank you, madam Pro Tem. And so I'll throw in my veteran, my mother, who was a navy nurse. So it's always good to see wonderful women in leadership in our armed forces and now potentially taking the helm of our veteran affairs. I wanted to also say it was wonderful to meet with you and to just hear your passion, but also your grasp on so many of the details of the work that's moving forward and really exciting to hear all of the transformative work that's happening there.

And one of the things that struck me was our conversation about the demographic shifts that are happening. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, particularly about the role of women now in our ranks and also potentially in terms of our veteran affairs, how important women are going to be to the services in the future.

Well, thank you so much for that question, Senator. I really appreciated our time together. I was very excited to learn about your mother's service. That's wonderful. And having served as the deputy secretary previously for women Veterans affairs, this is, of course, a personal passion of mine in addition to something our Department looks at very seriously. So, yes, the demographics among our veterans are changing.

We know that our number of veterans in the state will continue to reduce as we move further and further away from specific conflicts that we faced. But as those numbers reduce and time goes on, our veteran profiles are also changing. So the military is becoming more female, more diverse, as well as a little bit younger, as are our veteran cohorts. So when folks are coming out of the military, we're seeing more women coming out of the military.

We're also seeing a much more diverse population of people who have served, including a younger population. It's skewing younger. So we know that we have some specific challenges and new ways that we need to adapt in serving that population. And that's something that our Department has been focused on for some time. In fact, I'm happy to report that both our divisions that focus on underrepresented veterans as well as women veterans have grown over the last eight years.

We've added staff and managers to those positions thanks to the Administration, the support of the Legislature, and thanks to the work of the folks that are running those divisions currently.

So I think that now that we have additional staff and we have continued programs that we will interact with and make sure that we overlay the lens of the specific challenges that our changing veterans are facing, we're well positioned to make sure that their voices are heard and that we continue to work to make sure we're incorporating their specific needs and challenges in the programs that we roll out.

Wonderful. And I was really excited to hear about potential focus on women and careers and what are the services that our women veterans will need as they enter the workforce. My question has to do with a point that you raised earlier as priority, and that has to do with housing. And we talked a little bit about this.

Not only is my mother a veteran, but I also have cousins and uncles and others who are still active duty and had been given some concerning news in terms of active duty Members, those who are being stationed here in the great State of California, finding it very difficult to find housing, and in fact, some of them even sleeping in their cars because either their allocations are not allowing them to be able to afford the rents or they're not able to just find the housing that they need.

A third of the nation's unhoused veterans, unfortunately, live in this state. And part of this, I know you mentioned we're changing. We're building housing. But I also wonder, how does Calvets really think about the way of getting information out to veterans? How do you also work with our active duty.

Facilities where active duty Members are housed? What is the relationship with Veteran affairs? And is there a way that we can be helpful in helping to increase the ways in which veterans get information about housing, whether they're, and I know active duty is not in your wheelhouse, but in terms of the partnership that we can help to better share information so that those folks who are making the ultimate sacrifice when they come to our great state have a place to live. So I would love to hear more about what you're doing.

Absolutely. I would say our department's gone through significant growth over the last seven years or so. One area where we've grown is within our veteran services division and bringing on some programs that are specifically focused on educating near veterans, so active duty service Members as well as veterans of all eras, and that's our California Transition Assistance Program.

This program has been, I would say, groundbreaking in some of the ways that it's reaching out to military service Members who are about to become veterans and then looking for those moments that matter in a veteran's life and laying out what we see as really the veteran lifecycle and experience to be able to interact with our folks at any stage of their lives, to interact with their family Members at any stage of our lives.

So since Caltap's inception, we have reached over 27,000 military Members, veterans, or family Members. We've put on about 800 in person or virtual events specific to educate our populations, our constituencies on all sorts of benefits they may have available to them, whether that's housing, education, employment, and more specifically, we've worked really hard to connect them with their community based systems of care.

And that's something that I personally have worked on in our Department in years past, making sure that it's really our stakeholders who are well connected with our Department in advocating for and connecting veterans directly on the ground where they live and work.

And so I think programs like our CalTap program, as we continue to look at our changing demographics and we continue to tweak our goals, we're going to be able to impact more veterans through programs like that, which is really the first step in making sure that veterans are aware of the benefits and services they have available to them, and then likewise, really focusing on educating ourselves in concert with our stakeholders on what it is our veterans are experiencing on the ground.

So you asked how you may be helpful or others may be helpful. I think it's anytime there's an issue with a veteran in your district or with a stakeholder provider, we would be happy to help you with that. Additionally, getting the word out that the California Department of Veterans affairs is in many ways a connector for California and really has created this network of providers. So if a veteran comes to us, we're going to be able to connect them directly with the services in their community specifically.

Thank you for that, and looking forward to your confirmation. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Wilk.

Thank you, Madam Pro Tem, I'm pitch hitting, so we did not get a chance to meet, although I heard you had a lovely conversation with the Ochoa Bogh, and she's supportive, so therefore I'm supportive.

Thank you, Senator.

So we're good on that. I will tell you, I used to fly to the same airport with Dr. Vito and I'm going to miss him.

I know.

Had many animated conversations. Great, great guy. I heard you're going to be even better. So I'm excited about that. I do have one question, because now I'm going to represent my district since I'm here. And my first appointment I received politically, I was 28 years old. I was appointed as a trustee of the city library by then Mayor Pete Knight, who obviously went on to do bigger and better things.

The original promise of the Pete Knight veterans home was that they were going to have skilled nursing there at some point, and that still has not happened. So if you could look into that, because it is certainly something we do need, and I would appreciate that.

I appreciate your comments and thank you for your support. That's a wonderful home. Our Lancaster veterans home, which currently has, as you're aware, just one level of care, which is our RCFE, or assisted living level of care. I'm aware that the homes, Lancaster and Ventura, when they were built many, many years ago, had a little bit of a different expectation with those, including some land to go along with that. What I will say is this is all part of our process of evaluation.

We were asked by the Legislature to develop a series of master plans for our eight veterans homes. Every five years, we're looking at all of the homes writ large, and then in each intervening year, we're looking at specific homes. Coming up soon will be a report for West Los Angeles, which is really the glavic homes, west Los Angeles, Ventura and Lancaster.

And I would say the evaluation of what to do with our homes in the future and what levels of care we're providing at those homes really needs to match our current and future demand. That's the most important thing we can do with our homes. So in any way that we can evaluate the demand for Lancaster, that population, and see what makes the most sense, we'll certainly be doing so insofar as it fits with the expectations of that statute.

Great. Well, I appreciate your comments. And again, congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Senator Laird.

Thank you. And I really appreciated meeting. And actually, we met shortly after you were appointed, unrelated to this. And so I think it's a tribute to you reaching out. I really appreciated our meeting, and it caused my Chief of Staff to ask me a question, because when we were talking about World War I veterans, and I said, the last one died in 2011, he turned and said, how do you know that? Which was good?

And I have a throwaway question before getting to one that follows up on Senator Wilk and the throwaway is another Senator talked to me, and so he asked if I would ask you if you would return phone calls from Senators if you happen to get them about an issue.

I would absolutely return phone calls if I get them.

Perfect.

I have received a few already, especially after my confirmation or after my appointment, which I greatly appreciated. But, of course, I would follow up.

Thank you. And then I want to follow up on Senator Wilks, and it's what we talked about at length. There has been a big move in a part of my district to try to have a new veterans home in Monterey. And your predecessor basically said the demographics of a number of veterans is going down. And if there were able to be a priority based on unrepresented areas with hospitals, there would be 23 or four urban areas in front in line.

And basically that there was no intent to do new veterans hospitals anyway. And you can comment on that in a minute if you like. But the question that came from it is that even though the number of veterans is shrinking, as Senator Wilk got toward the number of those that need memory care or assisted living or skilled nursing is going up because of what the demographic is, and there's been real trouble meeting that demand.

And so the question is, in some ways, how much is the demand? Your inability to fill positions and the fact that you have some vacancies, but they're not in the right place, and how much is the fact that there's just a greater demand that we haven't been able to meet?

Right. I appreciate that, and thank you for your time as well. Senator Laird. I've enjoyed meeting with you, and obviously, trading some good stories about Europe and language and things like that. I would say, first and foremost, the current staffing vacancies we're facing among our veterans homes are a direct result of the pandemic. Of course, like any other healthcare industry, we were hit pretty hard with burnout, with people deciding to leave the healthcare industry altogether.

And we are in the process of filling vacancies as quickly as we possibly can. Now, we're running, on average, about 26%. So we have a vacancy rate of 26% across all of our positions, across all of our homes, and within specific job classifications, those run higher. That means that if in licensed care, we're not able to fill specific vacancies for staffing, we're not able to meet patient hours per day. That means that we can't backfill our vacant beds.

And so we are running at a lower census than normal, again, because of the pandemic, because of natural attrition and because we paused and slowed down some of our entrances into the home to protect people against Covid, and for that we were successful. But as a result, we need to ramp that back up.

So we are working on a number of initiatives to increase our staffing and hiring to backfill those vacancies, which will then in turn allow us to focus on filling beds again before we do anything else and entertain any other ideas about new homes coming online, the focus really should be just that.

In our homes, our focus should be backfilling our staffing vacancies and getting our census back to an optimized level so that we can continue to serve the veterans that we're able to serve through the eight homes that we have to. Your question, though, I absolutely think the demand is going to outpace anything we already provide. Absent of any staffing vacancies or the number of beds we have, the demand is just simply going up.

So that doesn't necessarily mean we're in the business of building new homes, though, because this is a policy that the VA is moving away from. They're focusing instead on skilled nursing facilities, for example, which we're building a new skilled nursing facility to replace the Holderman hospital and our yacht Bill veterans home. So that's an example of where that focus and attention with the VA is. They're also looking at how to provide increased in home care for our veterans who need that level of care.

So any home that would be out for consideration in terms of looking at a region where we would want to build a new home, and I don't think that's something that I want to entertain at this time. It would really need to look at specific criteria that we identified in our 2020 master plan and that we overlaid and evaluated all of our current homes with.

And those five criteria include proximity to VA care, the healthcare infrastructure surrounding the area, the need of veterans, so actual acuity, and if their level of care is needed in that veteran population, the size of the veteran population as it exists, and the workforce availability in those specific positions. I can tell you right now, and this is public information as well, anyone can visit our master plan report on our website.

None of our current homes meet all five criteria, and that would really be what you would want, ideally, to be able to create a new veterans home. At this point, my goal is to focus on the eight that we have.

We have lots of infrastructure associated with those homes, and we really need to make sure that we are not only maintaining aging infrastructure, but caring for it as is necessary per licensing and to make sure that these are continued homelike environments that our residents want to live and live out their final days in.

And fortunately, Senator Grove's out of the room because then I can refer to my prior job, because I'm aware that if you are in a position that you're in, you can't get out in front of the Administration and asking for things. It is an Administration ask, but from your comments, I would glean that if you needed more help, it might be in figuring out how there's more resources for assisted living or memory care, or whether there's some more flexibility for in home care.

That might be something that helps meet the demand. And the one observation I would make that we talked about in our meeting is that at some point in this whole discussion the last couple of years, one of the benchmarks was the number of people that were on a waiting list.

And I had a big pushback from a Veteran Service Officer in my district saying there are a lot of people that won't even go on the waiting list because they see it so long that they won't sign up. So using it as a benchmark for what the unmet need is, is not totally reliable. And so I would just offer that as well. And it is difficult in places that are farther away.

I know in the Monterey Bay Area now there's finally a VA facility of sorts in Monterey. But the big deal was transportation to Palo Alto and trying to figure out how to get people there for their care, because generally, if they needed intense care, they didn't have the ability to drive, and they might not have the resources to have a car. And so that was the barrier in getting them to the VA.

And the instructive thing that you just said, and you said yesterday is it also is not just a clear decision of you as a state official and veterans making this. Certain things have to be approved by the federal VA, or they have to be involved in construction or grants or other things. And even if you wanted to do certain things without that, it's not the case.

That's absolutely correct. The VA, through their VA home loan or home construction grant, reimburses up to 65% of the construction cost of a state veterans home. Right now, we have the highest population of veterans of any state in the nation. Number two would be Texas, number three would be Florida. Texas has, I think, eight or nine veterans homes, and Florida has eight homes. So I don't see any states exceeding that average number in General.

And a number of other states have far fewer homes than that, and yet they have greater demand and need. So when going into this endeavor of looking at building a new home, any state is competing with those construction grants. With any other prioritization the VA may see as a higher priority from another state.

Thank you. I think this whole exchange is the reason I'm going to be really happy to vote for your confirmation. You're on top of it. You're knowledgeable, and you're prepared to act. So thank you, sir, for being responsive.

Senator Laird, thank you so much. Thank you, colleagues. And to jump off of your last point, I was thrilled to see the Governor make this appointment. I feel like I have had direct knowledge of you and worked with you for almost a decade, if not a little bit longer. And it's clear when I see you, without notes, answering the questions with what the situation is. So I think we are very fortunate to have this kind of experience. So thank you and thank the Governor for that.

These are good questions. I wanted to know in terms of the in home health issue, do we have resources right now to work on that, or is that just a future thing that you are hoping we can take a look at in terms of services for veterans?

I think a system that we have in place that I'm proud of right now is our relationship with our County Veteran Service Officers.

And I was going to get to that.

Okay, wonderful.

Go right ahead.

And we didn't even have a chance to meet. Ma'am. Madam Pro Tem, I just thank you so much for your support over the years for veterans issues. You and I have worked together on a number of programs advocating for women veterans, for example. And I just always appreciate the support over the years in home health care is something that the VA is able to provide when veterans qualify for compensation benefits. And that's what's so great about Calvet and our relationship with our County Veteran Service Officers.

They hold our power of attorney so that they can submit claims for veterans on behalf of the Department. We have a great relationship with them that includes accrediting them, training them, clear oversight of their workload units, and then, of course, subvention funding that goes directly to those county offices. They are kind of the boots on the ground for what we do in terms of first connecting with veterans and being able to provide a number of services to them.

And that will include disability and compensation, pension survivors, indemnity compensation, and can include qualifications so that the veteran can receive support for in home care.

That was going to be my next question. Your relationship currently with the 56. 56, correct? That is really wonderful to hear that the relationship is very, is, you know, the last question because I really feel.

Like people have asked a lot of questions, and certainly we would like to see our homes be able to meet the capacity. But to Senator Laird's point about the infrastructural needs of the system, not just bricks and mortar and making sure it is intact and safe and all of those things, but the operational piece, the 25 million increase in nursing operations, I think for the 23-24 budget, nursing shortages are, across the board, a problem throughout our state and system, various systems. How are you able to compete? What is your strategy for competing to get adequate nursing staff?

Right. Well, first, thanks to the Legislature for supporting that ask so that we could get through these times with continued support from the nursing registry. That's been very helpful. It's allowed us to maintain our licensing requirements and continue to provide quality care to our veterans, but that's not a long term solution. Our long term solution should be to continue to backfill those vacancies and achieve what we hope to be a more competitive environment.

There was success this year with achieving some of the, not just general salary increases through bargaining, but also some additional stipends. That was helpful. We hope that that brings more people to the table. We're also working on doing our best to let people know through active job fairs and community partnerships that there are opportunities to work at our veterans homes.

We're tapping into, I think, much more strongly our relationships with local community colleges or colleges that have some of these healthcare pipelines as we'd like to really build that pipeline for the future in case we run into these challenges down the road and we're really looking at employee retention.

How do we connect every employee at Calvet to our important mission and make sure they feel valued and supported as employees, but also have opportunities for additional training, professional development so that they can provide the best services and care to our veterans. An employee focus and getting out and talking to our staff at Calvet is one of my top goals as well because I think after the pandemic, there's a lot of burnout.

People are wanting to know what's going to change with new leadership, and one of the best things I can do is get out and just have more FaceTime with our folks and know that we support and appreciate the work that they do, and we're going to give them more opportunities for training and professional development where we can. I think those things can help make us more competitive as an organization.

I think we as not an independent healthcare facility, but instead, as a state, have amazing benefits that anybody should be excited to come work for the State of California, and especially when it comes to serving our veterans. The people who do work for us are so happy. And this is what if I can take a moment to praise our Calvet staff. Really, these are just the most committed, dedicated folks. They care so much about what they do.

And every person we interview for a job, whether they get the job or not, the first thing they say is, I really just want to work at Calvet because I love serving veterans. They either have a connection, they have served in the military themselves. It is really a calling at our Department, and I think that's just a unique place to be in state government.

So if we can continue to connect people with that mission and make them feel really valued with the work that they're doing every day, I think we are going to be a little bit more competitive in that healthcare setting.

Well, thank you. And I would say thank you to the staff because I've seen that in action at any event I've ever been to related to staff. And Senator Smallwood Cuevas, my sister that the Vice Chair always acknowledges ahead of me, left the Navy in San Diego, went back to school courtesy of the military and became a nurse. And then her first priority was to work at a VA in the south, and she was committed to.

So I know that it is a family, I know that it is a calling, and we thank you as well as your staff. If there are no more questions, it is now time for those who wish to speak in support, and we have a microphone here if anyone would like to come forward in support. I need your name, your title, if any, or organization you're associated with. And very brief comments welcome.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. My name is Seth Reeb with Reeb government relations, representing American Legion, amVets, California Association of County Veterans Service Officers, California State Commanders Veterans Council, Military Officers Association of America, Vietnam Veterans of America. We strongly support Lindsey Sin's confirmation as Cal Vet secretary. Over the past six years, I've had the distinct pleasure of working with acting Secretary Lindsay Sin.

Throughout her tenure, she has held various key leadership positions within the Department, gaining a sound understanding of its mission and the veterans it serves. We applaud her dedication and well being of veterans and her tireless effort to improve their lives. Lindsay Sin is the right person for the job. Her track record speaks volumes about her commitment, leadership and passion for service of our nation's heroes. We look forward to the opportunity to continue working with her in her role as secretary of Calvet. It is with great enthusiasm and confidence that we offer our full support for her appointment as Calvet secretary. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much. Next witness, please.

Good afternoon. Chad Hodges, President, CEO of HSB Solutions. We have been a longtime service provider to the State of California in many facets. I'm also a Marine Corps veteran myself, and I just want to say in support of Lindsey, she's compassionate, she is empathetic. She knows what the mission is of Calvet because she lives it and she's a veteran. So, you know, it's pretty easy to get behind her. And she holds everyone accountable for the work that they.

And I've seen it in person, I've seen it in the hospitals, I've seen it in her staff, and I've seen it in the veterans that she serves. And I just want to say that she has a funny saying. She doesn't want to be good. She wants to be great. And she doesn't just say that. She lives it every day. And she holds her entire leadership team, many of which are here today, accountable to that as well. And it's a blessing to be able to be a partner to the State of California and to Lindsey and her leadership group at Calvet. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Next witness. Welcome.

Thank you. My name is Tom D'Agostino, and with Aaron Reed & Associates, representing the Vet Fund Foundation. And we've had the privilege of working with Lindsay for, I think, the day you walked in the door. We've had our fun times and our hard times, but I can say, unequivocally, her leadership and insight and expertise is very promising for the future of Calvet, and it's a privilege to work with her and her staff. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next witness.

Welcome, Madam Chair Members. Aaron Reed. I could have not come and let Tom do it because Tom has been with me for over 20 years, and he's super and he's got a great relationship with Lindsey. By the way, my daughter's name is Lindsey, spelled the same way. So it's been a pleasure. I've been fortunate to be in a lot of those meetings, and you won't find a better person to ever leave this place. I thought we couldn't beat Vito. He was great.

But Lindsay is top of the game, and you've heard her this afternoon, and she's doing a bang up job, and it's not an easy job. And I can tell you, because I've never added it up, but PORAC has 75,000 Members. Thousands of them are veterans. Highway Patrol Association, which we proudly represent them as well, has 14,000 active and retired Members, and many thousands of them are veterans. And CAL FIRE, same thing. So we appreciate your work. Stay with it. We're proud to be here and support her confirmation. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other witnesses in support? Okay, anyone in opposition? Okay, I will bring it back to the dais for a motion. Thank you. Senator Wilk, the Vice Chair is going to be very upset that she didn't get to make this motion, but she is at Health Committee. She's got double duty today. But we will keep the roll open because I think she already expressed her support. So, you know, you don't have to worry about her coming back.

And given a surprise vote in opposition, that likely is not going to happen. So thank you, Senator Wilk, for stepping in and making the motion. Let me ask Madam Secretary to call the roll.

[Roll Call]

And we will put this on call. Congratulations. And again, thank you for your service. Thank you, everyone, for being here.

Thank you so much.

We're going to take just about a five minute break, so we'll be promptly back in five minutes, so thank you for your patience and stay with us.

Thank everyone for their patience. And again, our Vice Chair will be back. She is at the Health Committee. And we will go ahead and invite up our second conference, which is a position with the California Energy Commission. Noemi Gallardo. I'm going to hope I said your name correctly. Welcome. And again, thank you for your patience.

I will invite you to do the same, which is thank anyone, acknowledge anyone you would like to make opening comments, and then we'll go right to Members of the Committee for questions. Welcome.

Thank you. Buenos Tardes. Good afternoon, Pro Tem Atkins and Senators. I'm honored and humbled to be considered for this appointment. I will introduce my guests. I am privileged to have a village with. So, first off, my parents, Connie and Jesus. They are my champions from the beginning. He's raising his hand. My dad doesn't speak English very well, but I told him to raise his hand when he heard his name. And they inculcated in me to always know that. ce se pueda. Yes, you can.

So I really appreciate them being here to witness this. I also have here my partner in life, Emilio Camacho. He's raising his hand. We have his son, Milito, who is a buddy of mine, and also my unofficially adopted son. Also here is my father in law, Javier. I also have my two kids, Adan and Chalito. Adan looks gorgeous in his suit, but he's so uncomfortable, so I don't know if he's going to smile for us or not.

But they've been very quiet, so I'm proud of them. I also have here my brother, Emmanuel. He looks bigger than me, but he will forever be my little brother. And his daughter, my niece, Solana, who is also my goddaughter. They both flew from Texas to be here for this hearing. So I'm really grateful to them for doing that. I also have my friend Bo here, who's been a good friend of our family for a long time.

I have my Chief of Staff, Eric Stokes, my special advisor, Jimmy Kakunda, who both make my life much easier because of how great they are. Also here is Brady borcharding, who is the lead of our government affairs office. He's going through this confirmation process with me as our first time. He's been doing a wonderful job.

I really appreciate him and several of the colleagues from the Energy Commission, which I won't list out at this point, and some other friends who are here, but they'll introduce themselves through the comment period. And so I did want to start out by telling you the three key reasons why I'm motivated to serve in the role of Commissioner. First, I am a California native who was born and raised in Ventura County and educated at three California schools.

All of my employment has been in California in the private, nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, including eight years working in energy, and I also established my own small business as a certified Spanish interpreter. So working in the public sector now is an opportunity for me to contribute back to my home state all that my family and I have benefited from living here, and that also makes me even more committed to supporting others to achieve prosperity in the energy space as I have.

Second, as a Latina, and possibly the first to be appointed as a California energy Commissioner, I think it's important that I'm not only reflecting the diversity of California, but more importantly, bringing a unique personal experience as the daughter of Mexican immigrants, having lived in a mixed immigration status household, being an English language learner, being a first generation college graduate, and growing up L\low income, this experience gives me a very pragmatic outlook, focusing on how the Commission can continue improving our programs and policies to benefit all Californians, starting with those who have been hurt first and worst and most by climate challenges.

Third, I am a mother who wants to be a good role model for my kids, Adan and Chilito, and also for young women like my goddaughter Solana, showing them the importance of leadership, service and taking care of our natural resources. Additionally, I want to improve our environment to ensure they and the generations after them have healthier outcomes.

And I'll close by saying that my top priorities are first, as attorney Commissioner, to lead with integrity and ensure the Commission abides by the law while pursuing our mission of leading the state to an 100% clean energy future for all. Second, as a new Commissioner, I'm educating myself on all the issues the Energy Commission is addressing, and there are a lot of them and connected to that.

Because of my unique personal experience, I am committing to applying a community perspective when I address the work, which requires listening and learning from the public and treating them as experts. I also want to ensure these communities have a voice, and this requires identifying ways to engage early, often, and meaningfully with tribes and communities, particularly those from rural areas and low income and disadvantaged communities who may have been harmed by policies of the past or left out of opportunities in clean energy.

And third, I am prioritizing the successful implementation of two new programs that we have at the Energy Commission that will span my term, which are the Lithium Valley vision. This is an opportunity to establish a lithium economy ecosystem in California while increasing prosperity for residents of the Imperial Valley and the Salton Sea region.

And the other is to oversee the successful implementation of the Energy Commission's new opt in certification process to hasten the reliability of the grid with clean energy resources while expanding benefits to local communities where these projects are. So thank you for listening to me, for giving me this time, and I look forward to our dialogue today.

Thank you very much. And you really did bring a village. It's an honor to have your parents here. It is. I think parents always get special dispensation when they come because all of us have stories. And those are the stories that really resonate emotionally in terms of what people love to do and the passion they bring to it and the work ethic that is instilled in you, obviously, from those incredible parents and of course, to everyone else. I didn't mean to ignore anyone, but we always like to see family.

Thank you, Pro Tem Atkins, for acknowledging that.

And the young ones are being very good. We've had other experiences.

I should get an extra bonus point for that, right?

I'm not sure you will. Thank you, Senator Laird. Let me start with Senator Smallwood Cuevas, and we'll just come right down the line. Go ahead

Thank you so much, Madam President. And it's so good to see you again, Mrs. Gallardo. It was a great conversation that we had. I enjoyed it as well, and appreciating the priorities. And the Commission plays a tremendous role in guiding us forward in the goals that we have.

And one thing that we talked quite a bit about is the significant funding and investments that are being made, particularly around jobs and career and employment training services and otherwise, particularly for oil and gas workers in this process of transition. But one of the things that I want you to clarify a little bit more on is just how do we continue to really prioritize workforce development as we are not just prioritizing but aggressively moving toward our clean energy goals.

The Energy Commission has been the lead in some of the zev charging infrastructure work, citing. We talked about a number of energy projects, and the CEC is doing quite a bit to engage communities in the process. But as we're thinking about the buildouts, you are particularly in a position to be leading on the workforce and making sure that those targets, particularly those with state funding, bring in underrepresented populations.

When I say underrepresented, I mean underrepresented in the infrastructure building space who've been left behind by the last economic shifts of the past. Now we're moving into this clean energy shift. What are those worker programs that we ensure that our workforce is keeping pace with the ambitious goals and projects that we're moving forward. Really want to know more about how you see your role in making sure that the workforce programs keep pace with the goals that are moving forward.

Thank you for that question. I do appreciate it. And I will be very frank that I don't have a workforce development background. I don't have that expertise and that experience. However, I recognize that that is extremely important for providing opportunities for people to be able to live a life with dignity and be able to prosper and have the next generation build wealth. And so for my family, that was really important.

And so I want to bring that to this work, prioritizing it, even though I may not have that type of expertise, to be able to go deep on it. So here's one of the things that we're doing at the Energy Commission. We are trying to engage staff more deeply on the importance of these areas like workforce. That's not necessarily a primary responsibility for the Energy Commission to do, but we realize it's a priority. So we do want to learn more about what can be done.

So we do have an initiative that we're doing. We're calling them communities of practice, where we're able to bring staff out of their silos in terms of their policy areas to talk about workforce development, supplier diversity, language access, outreach and engagement, and other types of benefits that can bring value to communities. So we're having staff talk about that and how can we do these things, advance these things in our programs and through the projects that they're working on. So that's part of the learning.

And so we're starting that out. And then what we are also seeing is that there are several divisions that are including workforce as part of what they do with their grants. So, for example, the fuels and transportation division is in charge of the clean transportation program, which is a bucket of monies. And what the program is doing is including funding for workforce training programs related to developing and deploying zero emission vehicles and related to infrastructure, as you were talking about.

And the program's workforce training initiatives that are funded are broad based partnerships. So we're not doing it on our own. We are looking to partner with other organizations. There is a program that they're doing where they're partnering with community colleges and also the employment training panel. So folks who have that type of expertise that we can learn from and that we are ensuring is happening, even though we're not the ones who are the experts on that front.

So I think that the clean transportation program is doing a really excellent job on that workforce front and ensuring that there are those opportunities for prosperity, because jobs are one of the main ways that we can ensure that people are doing well, especially those folks who need those types of opportunities. The annual update for the clean transportation program investment plan is coming up, so we will be able to see a bit more about how much they're carving out for that workforce development piece.

So I think Senator Smallwood-Cuevas, that would be a good update for you to receive, and so we can follow up on that so that you can get more specifics. I don't lead that program, so I don't have access to what the timing will be, but I know that it will be coming up, and so that'll be a good opportunity.

Thank you for that. And I look forward to making sure that we stay on track to receive that data and information. My final question has to do. I felt we had a really good conversation about the different ways in which the CEC is thinking about not just engaging community, but concretizing community benefits agreements.

The Senate played a major role in making sure that Senate Bill SB 150 was signed by the Governor, which now ensures that there are community benefits and project labor agreements that help to build infrastructure, and then also looking at the ways in which we ensure labor and equity standards in the green sector. Right, particularly around green manufacturing. And you spoke quite a bit about the ways in which there is a discussion around Community Benefits Agreements. And I wonder if you could share a little bit more about that process, and particularly within those projects that are funded by the CEC.

So Community Benefits Agreements are something that are new to us. They are being talked about in the offshore wind space. They're not necessarily required there. But there is an emphasis, and developers are starting to work with communities. And we know of one developer who has done a community benefit agreement with a tribe. And so these things are happening offshore. One is an example. Another where community benefits agreements are required is in our new opt in certification program.

So I think that's one of the great things about this certification process, is that we're citing, going through the process to determine if we can cite a project, but requiring that there be benefits to that community through this legally binding agreement. And the other thing that we're trying to do at the Energy Commission is not assume that merely because a project is cited in an area, that that's an automatic benefit.

So in the opt in certification process, for example, we are looking to do a lot of engagement, and we'll are required to do workshops where we can obtain input from the public, for example, on these community benefits agreements to see what their perspective is on them, is it actually bringing value to them? So again, we don't want to assume that merely having a project there is a benefit.

And so we're trying to do better across the board on all our programs to determine how can we figure out what those benefits are. What type of metrics can we apply to be able to track and measure and hold ourselves accountable and look back and modify our processes if we need to? If what we're hearing from the communities, from their perspective, is that the things that we're doing, the actions we're taking, the projects, are not necessarily bringing value.

To them, I really appreciated that. And particularly as we are working through these recommendations for how SB 150 will be applied, particularly in the green manufacturing space, there's a lot that we can learn from what CEC is already doing in this process, even though it's in the early stages, but thinking about the evaluative process at the end to make sure the outcomes are realized.

When you shared that as a priority, I was really touched by that and wanted to say I appreciate the conversation again, and I look forward to your confirmation.

Thank you so much. And I'm looking forward to learning more about those metrics as well, because I think we are committed to always improving and there will always be areas for improvement. So I did want to tell you one more thing, Senators Smallwood Cuevas. I hadn't mentioned to you that there is another, you can consider it a mechanism for holding us accountable on benefits, on also workforce opportunities, which is the disadvantaged communities Advisory group. It's the primary advisory body for the Energy Commission.

They also advise the Public Utilities Commission, but they are constantly providing us guidance and input on what the Energy Commission can do better in our grant programs and in other programs as well. So I bring that up because there are going to be three openings. We would love to have more representation from the districts here. And given the emphasis you made on opportunities for people to gain more knowledge about clean energy, be involved, I think this would be a great opportunity.

So if you have any candidates, we would love to hear about them and we can also provide information and I'd be happy to follow up with you and give you that information about the disadvantaged community advisory group openings.

I absolutely appreciate that and for sure, we'll be in touch. Thank you for that update.

Wonderful.

Before we go to Senator Wilk on that issue, just thinking about it, I don't know offhand, are these advisory positions who determines who gets to be on the advisory mean maybe a little bit more information about have, if the staff will get it to our staff, we can share it with Committee Members.

Absolutely. Pro tem Atkins. We would really appreciate that because we're always seeking to have a diverse group, and so coming from different areas of the state and with different expertise and experience. So that would be really helpful to us if you're willing to do that. Who makes the selections are really the commissions. Both the Public Utilities Commission has to go through them, and it has to go through the Energy Commission.

We both have to approve, but we do have a very solid process where you're able to nominate yourself for that opening. Other people can nominate you for that opening. Our staff goes through a process where they interview the candidates, and then they provide the commissioners, who are the leads on the disadvantaged community advisory group, the information about the candidates, and then we go through to see who would be the best fit.

Looking at the cohort, what are the things that we're missing that would be helpful to us, and what are the areas that aren't being represented that we also want to hear and learn from? So it is a process, and we can provide that information.

Terrific. We will make sure, our staff will make sure to reach out so that we can get that and share it with our colleagues. They're always very interested in that kind of voice and representation and stakeholder process. Senator Wilk.

Thank you. Madam Pro tem, congratulations on your confirmation. Again, I'm just here for color this afternoon.

I like color. So that's good.

We didn't get a chance to meet. I know you did meet with Ochoa Bough. She very much enjoyed the conversation. She's supportive. So I'm going to be reflecting her vote today, and so I will be. Do I notice that you are the point person on the Lithium Valley Vision, which I'm excited to learn more about. So, five years ago, I was on a tour down in Chile, and we had a briefing with the American ambassador, and he was very concerned about China coming in and buying up all the assets, including lithium.

And then, obviously, recent years, we've had the supply chain issue on myriad products. Obviously, everything that's going on in the world right now is incredibly unstable. So being able to produce these things internally, I think, is really positive. And one of the things that they say in terms of geopolitics, that geography is destiny. And really, Imperial Valley has been limited to agriculture, and now they have this tremendous opportunity. I'm sure you guys have already interfaced with the Imperial County Economic Development Department.

I had a briefing from them this fall. I'm blown away with everything that's going down there. So I'm excited about this opportunity, not only to protect our national interests, but also the tremendous ability that we're going to have to generate wealth for Californians in California. So if you could share a little bit about that, I would really appreciate it.

Absolutely. So, I'm glad you recognized the potential and the possibilities. So Lithium Valley isn't a for sure thing. It has a lot of possibility, but there are a lot of things that need to happen before we can actually realize it. And so one of the things is that that area has been left behind and has a lot of pollution concerns. And so those are things that the community wants to address. So what we're looking at, we are working with the county.

I have been down there multiple times. That's one of the approaches that I take to energy, is going to the places so I can get more familiar with the nuance and the needs and the opportunities and the challenges and meeting the people. So I have gone down there. I've met with the county. The county has come up here as well, which has been fantastic.

And I think there's also opportunity to help support the cities there who aren't as ready as the county to be able to maximize the opportunities that are coming up, whether it be Lithium Valley or others. So, I am trying to be very diligent about working with the cities, the seven cities that make up the Imperial Valley, so that they can be ready. And I'm hoping that we can provide them technical assistance, capacity.

And I'm working with the Strategic Growth Council, also the governor's office, the senior advisor on social innovation, to see if we can obtain philanthropic funds to do more programs there that can get them ready. So, that is one of the efforts that we're working on. The other thing is, too, is that there are a lot of Lithium Valley, and the potential has brought a lot of attention, visibility, et cetera. And so there is a lot of enthusiasm from multitude of state agencies to get involved, to learn more, and they're interested in what they can do there.

And so, Energy Commission is convening all of these state agencies who have an interest or are already participating or involved, so that we can be more organized, coordinated, and have a comprehensive approach to helping ensure that the lithium Valley vision does happen, and that we have a plan for it, and that we're also utilizing our resources more effectively as a whole. So, we had a first meeting December, and we're hoping to do more of those meetings this year. So that's just a little bit about what needs to be done and taking action in order to help ensure that the Lithium Valley happens.

Well, I hope that we're successful with that. And, again, congratulations on your confirmation.

I do, too. Thank you. And I just want to add that Lithium Valley, I think, has the potential to transform the world and have California be at the know, similar to what Silicon Valley did for California and the globe. But I think with this opportunity, we can do it in a more equitable manner and have it be more sustainable. So I'm really excited about that piece, Senator.

Thank you. Just along the lines, before I hand it over to the Vice Chair, I had questions about that. So thank you for bringing it up. Any idea on timeline for. I know that we can take a long time. I know we need to do the proper due diligence. We need to consider all of the economic and environmental and all those just. I won't hold you to it. I won't be here anyway to hold you to it. Just thoughts on futuristic?

Thank you. Pro Tem Atkins. It's a great question. We're thinking about that, too. I think the first milestone we have to hit is for the lithium developers to be able to produce at mass scale. And we think that might happen in the next couple of years.

And once they're able to produce at mass scale, then that means there can be more opportunities for manufacturers of battery components, maybe batteries themselves, to start colocating there and really turning that into an ecosystem where we have all of it happening in one place.

It's creating a community, looking at the economic possibilities, and then there will probably be all the other environmental stuff.

Absolutely. And we do have the opt in certification process, which is available as a pathway, including for manufacturing and Assembly. So that's an opportunity. And I know the county is building up their capacity to be able to do more permitting as well for what's coming. So we don't have a timeline. We're hoping it happens as soon as possible, but we're waiting for that major milestone of the mass production to be able to occur.

I'm sorry, Senator, but this is a new kind of arena for us. It is. Government typically does not, for reasons I understand, but it seems like before we can, I mean, even the opt in, this is a new endeavor. So it's probably going to be a lengthy process to figure out how to do this.

Yes, I think you're right. There's a lot of enthusiasm, but there needs to be the planning. So we are excited about it. I think convening the state agencies will give us a better sense of where we're also. The Energy Commission had supported the Lithium Valley Commission, which was a forum for people who were interested in Lithium Valley being able to serve in this Commission and talk about what was needed and helping plan and figure out what the priorities were.

So the Lithium Valley Commission set out about 15 recommendations that we're going to bring back to the table through a symposium that we're holding, march eigth. And so it is really important for the Energy Commission. It's one of our priorities, and so we're trying to do our best to move things along in terms of what you're highlighting, the planning, figuring out what the resources are, because there is a lot of need in that area, and there's a major lack of infrastructure.

So it's not going to happen as quickly as Silicon Valley did. This will take longer and will need some deep investment. One of the other things we're doing is trying to figure out if we can leverage the opportunities we have right now with the federal funding as well. So the Department of Energy has pots of money. We did a visit.

We organized a visit for Members of the Department of Energy, and from the Department of Defense, they came to the Lithium Valley, and I think that was really helpful in them seeing what the possibilities were and the realities. And so I think we're going to see some investment from the Department of Energy as well. And we're going to need that, I think.

Okay. Thank you so much. I clearly need to look at what's already existing in terms of this, but I thank you for sending me in the right direction. I really appreciate the indulgence. Absolutely, madam Vice Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam Pro Tem. And frankly, I think I speak for everybody on the dais that you can cut in front of anybody up here.

Thank you. You're very gracious.

It was a pleasure to visit with you yesterday. I thank you for the time that you gave me. I want to follow up on the Senate pro tem and Senator Wilk's questions on the lithium issue. The CEC is having not checks and balances, but having a process in placement to move forward on this. I suggest you reach out to Laura Lyoviat.

I think everybody knows her name, and I think that she has out of the box thinking she's actually working with Imperial county now that I know of, and then also do those projects in Kern, county, whether it's boron, Cyrils Valley minerals, or others, because I do agree we need to take this from China and harvest this amazing product that we have here. And so I think she has a blueprint and a plan, and she's done some eir studies, and she'd be very valuable to.

To the Administration. And I know you guys know who she is.

Yes. So thank you so much for that. I appreciate all the help we can get, especially from experts with experience.

Yeah, no, no problem at all. A follow up on the workforce. The workforce questions that. My good colleague from Los Angeles was know the Administration is dead set on eliminating an industry that provides. It's a fossil fuel industry, which 70% of it is produced in Kern. county. And if you look at the workforce in the fossil fuel industry, it's 55% people of color, it's 6.5% women, it's 18% veteran and it's 30% 2nd chancers.

So individuals who come out of a prison system that have an opportunity to be gainfully employed and make $100 and something thousand a year where they couldn't do that in any most job or any other industry. So I think you have a ready workforce as people are being laid off continually because we have not been able to get permits.

So if you have jobs available, I would like you to offer those jobs to those individuals that have worked years in the oil industry that now find themselves being recruited by our oil companies to go to Venezuela to harvest the oil that we use every single day. I got a job ad on it just a couple of days ago. Just food for thought.

Yes, Senator Grove, I think that's really important. And I think the workers from your area are going to be needed. They're going to be essential, and they have the types of skills that can transfer. And I think, I don't look at it as a transition necessarily. I look at it more as an evolution where we need to provide awareness about what the opportunities are, education and training about maybe what has to be shifted and where those skills that they do have can be applied.

And so I'm really excited that you're putting it forward that way. I think they're going to be essential for the success of any clean energy movement that we have.

I appreciate that. Side note, they're being laid off and have been laid off for the last year. They have house payments, car payments. So this has to be something that moves forward because we are losing them in droves too. Like I said, I just got an ad across my phone about a major oil company wanting to get people to go to Venezuela and they'll pay for stuff. So to produce oil for us that we use here, Venezuela, no doubt.

I do have some questions, and we did talk about this and I really thank you for your time and I appreciate you spending time with one of my constituents. That happened to be in the office right before you came in.

They immediately recognized you and you had given them the kindness to listen to their issue that they have again, dealing with carbon emissions and getting off of coal production and moving into a place where they have millions of dollars of restoration they have to do to their plant to make things functionable. But I do believe it's the only one in North America. So we need to keep it here in California. I appreciate your willingness to do all that.

I have concerns about SBX1 2, which we did talk about yesterday. I did mention to you, and I had staff research and find and get the exact verbiage and pull up the video. The SBX1 2 was never intended to apply to oil extractors because this is a blanket going to find where price gouging, or supposed price gouging is taking place on the cost for fuel.

And I tried to explain during the hearing that we had with Miss Sanchez from the Governor's office at the hearing. My direct question was to her was to clarify what the intent is. Because oil extractors or oil producers are price takers. The price is set on a global market. Our Kern county oil extractors or producers have to sell it for what that price is, whether it's $20 a barrel or $120 a barrel. They don't get to set their own price.

And so when I asked the question to Ms. Sanchez in the governor's office, if this was their intent, she said, I quote, quote, we will clarify this, and happy to follow up with your office and staff. This Bill is a downstream of extraction of oil. So below the oil extractor, who has no control over the price. Okay. We talked about jobbers. We talked about different mechanisms on how to transport oil, turn it into fuel, refining, things like that.

So on a regulatory process, I guess my question is that there's not a legislative fix. We tried to work on a legislative fix to confirm what the governors of the Administration said during that hearing. And now it's in your territory as the CEC. Do you see that extractors would be responsible for reporting and all this stuff, even though they have no control over what the price is set at?

So I really appreciate the conversation we had, and you were helping educate me as well in this arena, because it is new to all of us. And so I'm trying to wrap my head around it. One of the things that I found out during my research to get that information was that the potential penalty that only applies to refiners. So producers, who you are saying are price takers, are exempted from that penalty. So you are correct.

And I believe what you said about Ms. Sanchez is that she said it didn't apply and it does not. From what my understanding is and the research I did and validated it with staff.

That would be great if you could follow up with me in writing on that because there still is a huge concern that these extractors or producers, gone producers. The Administration called these producers. Like I said, they're price takers, but they're wrapped up in this legislation and they have no control over what their price is and they shouldn't be in this legislation, but they're doing huge amounts of reporting requirements to tell you now the CEC, that they shouldn't be wrapped up in this situation.

I think you are right. Yeah. They are facing those reporting requirements. They will have to provide data, but they won't be impacted by a penalty. And I think one of the lessons I learned in dialoguing with you about this is that this area is complex and I think we need to do some more awareness and education on this, including, especially for folks who don't get involved so deeply on energy issues.

I mean, you and I have, and we still are trying to figure out what's the what. So I think it is really important for us to be more clear about who is affected and who is not. But that's my understanding.

Yeah. And I appreciate that understanding. That's what I've been told for a year now. Well, since when? It passed August, so not a year, sorry. But again, the intent of the Bill was to affect downstream meaning below the extractor producer because that's where the cost are mainly variable. They're variable cost depending on how much you pay, your staff, your drivers, your transportation people, the refinery cost, that's all varied. The extractor or the producer is set and they don't set it. So they're not the bad guy.

And I'm not saying anybody else is the bad guy. Thank you for that clarification. I have the question I want to follow up that we talked about yesterday is CEC now, because, and I realize that this is a brand new position, brand new Committee. You're just getting it started. You have hired an incredible person. You said Ty to run the division, but you're still staffing it up. I think they're allowed six positions and you said he has one in himself.

So I realize that we're in the brand new stages of them. I have a question on that particular piece on the Advisory Committee. I feel like the CEC is going to move forward on this refinery thing. Obviously, with the Bill that was passed.

Yes.

You now have the authority as the California Energy Commission to determine when and when not refiners can shut down and do maintenance. They call them shutdowns. Right, because they shut down the entire plant. Because you can't have certain things operating when you've got certain things not operating. So it's a shut down the plant and do maintenance. The CEC, I say you, but the CEC is now responsible for that scheduling or approving the scheduling of that maintenance. I asked you yesterday about a liability issue.

If a refiner comes to you and not you, but the CEC, and know we need to shut down, we think there's an exposure here. We have to fix this. We have a maintenance problem and the CEC says no, because ABC refinery is shutting down, which would potentially cause a supply and demand issue and cause prices to go up. And there is a liability exposure of an explosion or something happens with the health and safety of the employees or the facilities or the cities around these refineries.

Is that liability? Where is that going to fall? Is it going to fall on the CEC and the state? Or do you anticipate it falling on the refiner who had no control over the shutdown, or not being allowed to have the shutdown to fix the maintenance problem?

I think that's an excellent question, and I will look into that one. I didn't have a chance to do that, so I apologize that I don't have more answers. Now. I do know that one of our responsibilities is that long term planning that you're referring to. And so I don't know if it falls under that. We are also focused on gathering the data that we need to help us determine what is happening at the pump and then also determining that penalty.

And I do know that staff is working really hard on all of these issues, and they have been gathering a lot of information, are starting to see some trends, but aren't at the point where they're ready to make any recommendations. And I say that because I'm not sure if those would be the type of recommendations that would address the question that you're asking. So I'll look further into that. You did bring up the Committee.

So there is an independent consumer fuels Advisory Committee that hasn't been fully formed. There's going to be eight Members. Pro Tem Atkins, Assembly Leader Rivas have each appointed a Member. So there's at least two on that Committee. And then we haven't received any guidance from this Committee because it's still not formed, but potentially that may be a place, a forum as well, where we're getting some of that guidance and input so we will have more movement there. And I can also follow up with you on that piece, and the connections.

Thank you. And I really appreciate your willingness to dive into this issue. I do.

It's important. I think it's a vital consumer protection matter. People are going to the pump, and if there are price hikes happening or if the gas is more expensive one day than it was the other day, that matters to people. And that can impact whether they're able to put food on the table, they can pay their electricity Bill. It impacts them. So I think it is really important to get it in. So I dig into this, and I am trying to wrap my head around all of it. So I will follow up with you. Senator, I think you're asking a very vital question.

Believe you 100%, based on the conversations we had. I'd really like you to get on vessel finder, too. We talked a little bit about that, where foreign operators are bringing us oil, and they kind of just circle outside our ports and wait for the price to go up, and then they bring fuel in. If you can track them and you can see that's what they're doing and they're foreign operators.

But if you can make more money on every gallon of gas that's on there, and you're looking at hundreds of thousands of gallons, it's a significant cost benefit to them to do that, but it's detrimental to us. The Committee you just mentioned is different than the Advisory Committee, or is that the same Committee?

I think that was the same one. There's one Advisory Committee related to SBX1 2. Okay.

So that on the Advisory Committee, I know that it's not set up, and I know this is all brand new, but I'm trying to set the stage for how we move forward in the future. And you have been so reasonable and so, like you have researched, know, today you got me information that I didn't have yesterday, and I appreciate that. I know you're moving forward already.

The CEC, when I see you again, is proposing a margin cap for penalties, and it's supposed to start at the end of 2024. But we're in January, and I realize we have the. Until all this starts, we don't have a Committee set up yet. So I have concerns that the CEC is moving forward with a margin cap on profitability for every barrel of oil, from what I understand.

But there's no Committee doing the investigation, reading the data to find out what the issue is, and full disclosure. I do believe that every step has been taken to derail the oil industry, like Livermore Labs and approval on fracking and all these testing that all come like it's not the oil companies that are doing something wrong. I think this will show that as well. I'm very confident that this will show that as well.

But I guess my question is that how do you move forward on an industry cap, a cap for a specific industry on profitability when there's not a data or a Committee that's putting it together to provide the information to show that is even necessary?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. So, as far as I understand on this, the staff isn't able to provide a recommendation on the penalty yet. They're still doing a lot of data gathering. So I think it is going to take some time. So it is very possible that the Committee may be formed before then. And I have learned as well that Energy Commission is working on setting up roles and governance and providing more material on how this Committee should be set up.

And I think that will help move it forward. And my understanding is, too that our Executive Director would actually be at the forefront of making all this advance. So I think that, to me, shows that it will move and we may have that Committee set up so that it know with the other processes that are happening.

Okay. I appreciate, again, your time. I appreciate you diving into the Searles Valley minerals issues. I appreciate you. I do. I appreciate you. Yesterday when I was asking you these questions, we were in class together. Right?

Yes.

I don't mean that negatively, but in a good way.

I agree.

You're like, we did this, this, and this, and this is what I found out. And normally, people that are being appointed to your position, I don't mean normally, but they don't really have to. Right. But you did. And I want to thank you for doing that. So thank you, ma'am.

Well, I appreciate you recognizing that. And I did want to tell you, Senator Grove, and I also wanted to give some praise to Pro Tem Atkins, that one of the highlights of going to meet with you was that you had the Little Engine That Could book out in the lobby area and you explained how Pro Tem Atkins. And you supported this Dolly Parton Imagination Library program. And I thought it was wonderful. And the Little Engine That Could. Has been one of my favorite books.

And it really resonated with me as a kid, but I didn't realize until later why and it just helped me reflect yesterday about how that message of I think I can is so important. And even in my energy work, I have that message running through my head, especially when I have the challenges of being frustrated that I don't have information that someone is asking me for, that someone needs.

And so I do function that way where I do want to obtain that information and I don't let that stop me. And I do want to provide solutions for communities, especially those in need, just like the little engine helped out those folks. So anyways, I really enjoyed my time with you and even starting out with just seeing the types of programs that you're supporting I think are very helpful. So I enjoy the conversation and I look forward to hopefully having more conversations with you about this.

Thank you very much. It was a great honor to work with the Pro Tem on that. And hopefully it fosters a love for reading for our young kids that absolutely before they go to school. And I can tell you in Kern, county, we've already signed up over 6000 kids. And I think that's pretty incredible.

It's excellent. I'm going to look to see if it's available at my kids'school. Unfortunately, they're both aged out, but I think the other kids would benefit from that.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.

Thank you very much. As I turn it over to Senator Laird, I just want to make one comment for my colleagues and for the public. The appointment that you made reference that the speaker made to that Advisory Committee, the Senate, is a little bit different. It's the Senate Rules Committee that makes those appointments. I may make a recommendation, but sometimes my colleagues make recommendations. We're a little different than the Assembly.

And the only reason I mentioned that is because I don't want my colleagues to somehow think what appointment, we vote on those. And we've done that.

I appreciate that and apologize.

Nobody in the world knows the difference in terms of appointments. When I was speaker, I got to make those appointments directly. Now we go through our Rules Committee and the Senate, which I'm pleased to do, and we get good recommendations from many of our colleagues on these appointments that we get to make that go through the process.

Absolutely. Thank you for educating me on that, too.

Senator Laird, it's good government and we have your children and stepchild here. And not only I realized as we reflected on how well behaved they are, that we should also talk about the fact that they get to see government in action and what a wonderful thing it is, they get to see their mom or stepmom being confirmed, and that's a big deal. And they're also good. They're also well behaved. Senator Laird?

Well, you had that exchange about the appointments with the only person in modern times that's been the Speaker and the Pro Tem. So she knows how. And even though you gave a lot of credit to the library side of it, I think the Dolly Parton link, that was what was really important in that.

Absolutely.

Senator Grove, it's tough because everybody talked about all the issues and they didn't leave me much. And Senator Grove gave me a great idea because the accident of having her have a constituent in the office means that maybe some of us should deliberately do that in the future. And I think that's a good idea. I might actually organize to have it. She had it as an accident, but she has given me a good idea.

I was not kidding, because when we talked yesterday, we talked a lot about Lithium Valley, and apparently the pro tem was channeling the end of that conversation because I actually said I was going to ask you how it was going to turn from being aspirational to actually being on the ground and a real program and moving on it. And my colleagues did a great job of Anne.

I asked you how you were going to prioritize the $1 million of renewable energy money that's in the Diablo Canyon deal. And then today, the Governor, in his budget, stuck with the 100 million and took the 900 million unappropriated and is going to spread it over three future years. So you won't have that coming soon. I asked you about offshore wind. He deferred all those decisions to the May revise. And I asked you about spending the climate money.

And then he recommended most of it and answered that question in the budget. So the things that either been talked about in the hearing or we talked about almost every single one, got addressed in the forum.

One other thing that we talked about that didn't, that I thought I would ask you is that we talked about how much battery storage has come online in the last year, and that the little known story or little written story about the hot day in September a year ago, is that for a few hours, battery storage put more energy on the grid than the baseload from Diablo Canyon.

That battery storage helped bridge us in a few key hours, and that the Energy Commission, along with some other agencies, but the Energy Commission decides sort of what you're pushing for energy to come on the grid to make sure there's reliability. And a lot of battery storage has come on just in the 15th months since that one day.

And so my question yesterday, when we met, and thank you again for her Monday for spending the time, was, how does the Energy Commission make assessments about what comes online and what is needed and where there might be progress in sort of putting energy on the grid? That means that we're either ahead of where we are behind or we should do other things. How do you just sort of move with the times as the things that you work on are actually successful and sort of come online?

That's an excellent question, Senator Laird. I appreciate that. So I will uplift here the leadership of Vice Chair Siva gunda. He is the lead on reliability and has been so strong and helpful and been a mentor to me in understanding all of this. And so I think that one of the main forums where we do those types of assessments is through the SB 100 proceeding that he does lead.

So we had a report that came out in 2021 indicating what types of buildouts we're going to need, and they're unprecedented in order to get to our 100% clean energy goal. And then another area where we have a forum to be able to assess is through the integrated energy policy report, which we don't have to do on an annual basis, but we do.

And so we see those forecasts, and then that information is used by our peer agency, the Public Utilities Commission, for their integrated resource plan. So that coordination between our agencies is really helpful in terms of that planning and identifying what additional procurement and transmission needs we have over the next 15 years or so. So I think there's these various forums where we can do that, and then I know that our staff is assessing the gas fleets all the time and gathering data and looking through it.

So we're always receptive to new information and figure out what we can do with that. After our conversation, I did look at energy storage in terms of the numbers, and so I found out some good information, kind of what you're leading to. So our 2021 SB 100 report projected the need for over 50 gigawatts of storage by 2045, which is an unprecedented buildout, as I said. But we are making strides towards that. So, California currently has more than 8500 energy storage online.

That's enough electricity to power 8.5 million homes for up to 4 hours. And then in a recent midterm reliability report, the CPUC had predicted that we would reach 10,000 energy storage by 2026. But now we're seeing numbers that are showing we may reach 10,000 mw in the first half of this year. And I heard the chair, say, the other day, possibly even in March.

So it is moving fast, and I am not steeped in energy storage, and I'm not the lead on working on that area either. But I was really impressed by these numbers. And Lithium Valley will play a role in that, being able to have that domestic source of lithium. So I'm really excited about that piece. And then also the opt in certification, again, does enable that pathway for Assembly or manufacturing of batteries to come through in terms of permitting through that process. So there are areas where it's connecting. And so seeing these numbers and the progress we're making is really exciting.

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Thank you.

And I did not have the level of support from my family when I went through college. I want to salute all of them being here.

It helps to be Mexican. We tend to come in big groups.

Thank you. This has been enjoyable, and we've taken a lot of your time and asked a lot of questions. I just have one more. You're the lead Commissioner on audits, so I would ask you maybe to say a little bit about your approach on oversight and accountability of the programs and investments, and particularly how funds used by those implemented by third party entities. If you just want to give a little bit of description of your thought process on that for us.

Yeah. So, fortunately, I'm learning the audit process we have, and as the lawyer attorney, that's one of my duties. Excuse me, the lawyer attorney, the attorney Commissioner. And we have an Auditor who's expert, has experience. She's new to the Commission, but she's doing a fantastic job moving on that front. So we're kind of learning together.

But we do have the ability to take requests internally from our divisions when they do want to gather more information on whether they're seeing a problem with a third party that they're given a grant to. And they want to make sure that all the processes are in place that are needed to make sure they spend the monies wisely and on what they're supposed to be. So it's really helpful to have the audit process at the Energy Commission so that we can do that.

We can check on the third parties. I'm not sure if I'm able to disclose specific examples, but again, it's really helpful with grants, because we do give major grants, and we want to make sure that that money that we are investing is being applied wisely, that it's leading to the types of outcomes that we want for communities and for the state. And so it's important that we go through this process so the chair and I are the Committee in terms of the Audit Committee.

And then we have staff who are working with us who have been supporting the Committee for a while, so that it's also helpful to have them because they're able to spot issues that should be coming through the Audit Committee. And then if we're curious on something, for example, the reliability of EV chargers that the Energy Commission has invested in, for example, that came up as a question and we wanted to check in on that.

So those are the types of things we can do through the Audit Committee. Hopefully I answered your question. Senator Atkins, excuse me, Pro Tem sorry about.

I think you know, I've served on an Audit Committee. When I was at local government, we started to form audit committees and realized how important it was for elected officials to take that role because ultimately, at that level of government, anyway, we were the fiscally responsible. You gave an example of questions about an EV charging. Since you've been there since January of last year, you've had examples of where you've had questions.

I know you can't give specifics, but in that function as an Audit Committee, you've had questions where you've brought the staff in to say, we have questions about this. There are concerns. The process you feel really works and there is good oversight and accountability.

Absolutely. And so it can work both ways where staff in the divisions, if we have project managers who are overseeing grants, projects, et cetera, and they can bring the issues to us. And so they can say, we would like to prioritize this audit because we are seeing some type of urgency. And so we'll talk about it in the Committee and determine what the timing should be. So I agree with you.

Very helpful to have that internal process that we can rely on to make sure that we're being held accountable to ourselves, on making sure the money that we are trusted with is being spent correctly and will deliver results. And if it's not, then we take action and make recommendations on what to do.

Thank you. That's very helpful. Okay, I think now we can go to the public. So let me ask Members of the public that would like to speak in support to just have one family member speak for us. Thank you for that suggestion.

Sorry, madam Pro Tim. I'm just reminding everybody. He's just filling in today.

We will let people speak. I will ask, given the long line that seems to be forming, to do that, I will ask for your name, your organization or title, if any, and then very brief comments. Welcome.

I'm Danielle Blacet-Hyden with the California Municipal Utilities Association. We represent the publicly owned electric utilities that serve about 25% of Californians, and we really appreciate the work that Commissioner Gallardo has done, especially with geothermal development and in the lithium Valley. And so we support her confirmation and thank you for all the good work you've done.

Thank you. Next witness.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members, Anthony Molina, on behalf of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, in support of the confirmation and appointment of Noah Gallardo to the California Energy Commission. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next witness. Welcome.

Hello, my name is Marissa Arachvaleta, regulatory Director for Equinor Atlas Wind Offshore wind project in California. Ecuador thanks the Rules Committee for the opportunity to appear today in support of Noemi Gallardo. Ecuador appreciates Commissioner Gallardo's dedication to public service and her prior work at the CEC before being appointed Commissioner. She has been an important and active leader on Clean Energy and Transportation issues. We strongly support Commissioner Gallardo and ask for your confirmation of her appointment today. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next witness.

Good afternoon. Alejandro Solis, Legislative Director of student strategies here on behalf of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies and the Clean Power Campaign, and also the groups from Lithium Valley Committee and Los Amigos De LA Cominad in support of your confirmation. Thank you.

Next witness. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Raquel Mason, on behalf of the California Environmental Justice Alliance here in strong support, also wanted to register support for the Central Coast Alliance for a United and Sustainable Economy or CAUSE, Communities for a Better Environment, Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and the Center for Community Action and Environmental justice. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi, Kim Stone, Stone Advocacy, on behalf of the California Solar and Storage Association and more specifically, our Executive Director, Bernadette Del Charo, who was planning on coming in person but has a cold and in consideration of all of us, stayed home and sent me.

Thank you very much.

Hi there. Mckinley Thompson Morley with California Advisors here on behalf of Searles Valley Minerals, energy Source Minerals, MP Materials, Bioenergy Association of, California, the Center for Sustainable Energy, Solar Energy Industry Association, Scale Microgrid Solutions, and EDP renewables, all in support. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Chair Members of the Committee, Lillian Marvis with MCE, California's first community choice aggregator. We had a lot we wanted to say, but for the sake of time, we really value Commissioner Gallardo's values driven. Leadership and are really excited to work. With you going forward.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Just for the record, Senator Wilk, not one Member has been from her family yet. I'm just letting you know I'm paying attention. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Adam Hatefi here on behalf of Generac and more specifically, our Vice President of policy Anne Hoskins, who submitted a letter supporting the confirmation, worked with Commissioner Gerardo at Sunrun, and appreciate her dedication to public service and equity. Here to register our support for a confirmation. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Hello. This is Sanjeev Malhotra. I am the founder and CEO of a Lithium Ion battery company. All of that you guys were talking about, I'll just take 10 seconds, because we are here only because of Commissioner Gallardo. So we are setting up what will possibly be the largest cathode material or battery material factory in the United States, outside of China, not too far from here in Rancho Cordova. And we have secured $770,000,000 loan from the DOE's loan program. Office 550 is coming to the State of California. And.

Thank you. The CEC was very instrumental in bringing us here from Tennessee. So life was going very good until I met Commissioner. She said that you have to think big, and what was big, she took us to Lithium Valley, she took us to Salton Sea. And Sparks is very proud and very happy to announce that we are the first lithium battery company to partner with an American Indian tribe, tourist Martinez. And folks, we are setting up what we are setting up here in Larchukadova.

We are repeating that down in Salton Sea. And that's basically an investment of $1.5 billion by sparks into the State of California, creating 1500 jobs, all thanks to her. And I think you asked the question about hiring from disadvantaged communities. Again, thanks to Commissioner Gallado and to her office, to Eric Stokes, they made it very important for us that we need to hire as many folks from disadvantaged communities.

So along with Justice 40, President Biden's initiative, we have committed to hiring 50%, at least 50% from disadvantaged communities. Thanks a lot. And Torres, Martinez and Sparks is very supportive of Commissioner Gallardo's nomination. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Very helpful to know and to hear. Thank you. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Pro Tem. Mandy Lee. On behalf of the Clean Power Alliance, we are here in support of Commissioner's Gallardo's reappointment. I apologize it's late in the day. We've had the opportunity to work with the Commissioner on the ground, and she's community rooted and committed to energy equity, especially as it relates to disadvantaged communities and EJ communities.

I've also had the pleasure of working. With Ms. Gallardo in some of her previous roles before and can attest to her tenacity and fully support her reappointment. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Hi Chair and Committee, Alex Morris, the General manager with California Community Power. We are a joint powers authority backed by nine ccas and wanted to express our strong support for you, Commissioner Gallardo, with whom I've worked for a decade in many different roles, and I really appreciate your leadership and hard work and ethics. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next welcome.

Good afternoon, chair Members. Anthony Sampson, on behalf of the Southern California Public Power Authority, pleased to support the appointment of Commissioner Gallardo. Like many, I came here with a lot to say, as requested by SCAPA. But in the interest of brevity, I know how much their leaders are very supportive of your engagement with them to date, specifically on the issue of implementation, SB 100 and the like. And so they very much are supportive of your confirmation here, and we're looking forward to working with you moving forward.

Thank you very much. We didn't mean to scare that. Well, Senator Wilk didn't mean to scare the family away from speaking, but I assume you're here in support, and that's your statement, your visibility stand up one final time. Well, first I got to go to people who may be in opposition and hope that none of the family comes up. So let me, in my serious role as chair of this Committee, ask if there is anyone who wishes to speak in opposition. Okay. Thank you very much.

Congratulations. No one from your family stood up at this point. I will come back to my Committee to see who would like to make the motion. Madam Vice Chair has made the motion. Madam Secretary, will you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Five to zero. And I should have said yes. Thank you. I should have said this. And I'll have the staff contact Commissioner sin. We will move this to the full Senate for final confirmation. Today is the recommendation to our full Senate to confirm, and I did not say that prior, so we should do that. But with our congratulations, and we will move this on to the full Senate.

Thank you. I'm honored. Thank you. Really grateful.

Congratulations. We will open the roll on item one a and that is the confirmation. And we were sorry you weren't there, but I think she feels certain that you were going to be supportive. Madam Secretary, will you call the role?

[Roll Call]

Five to zero. And we will let her know I'm sure she knows from past history. But just to confirm what our action was today, to move it to the full Senate. No, that was not you. That was me. And not letting her know. Okay, we now need to adjourn into Executive session. We have one item before for us there with incredible thanks to everybody for your patience. Today's.