Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (Murkowski): Hearings to examine the nomination of Keith Sonderling, of Florida, to be Secretary of Labor.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will please come to order. Mr. Sondland, thank you for appearing before the committee and for your willingness to serve again the American people, and this time as Secretary of Labor. Mr. Sondland currently serves as the Acting Secretary at the Department of Labor, as well as leading subagencies within DOL, guiding policymaking, regulation, and enforcement of nation's labor laws. He was confirmed by this committee as Deputy Secretary of Labor last year. Based on his extensive experience in labor and employment policy and as a public servant, it is clear he is qualified.

When President Trump nominated Mr. Sondraline as EEOC commissioner in 2020, the Senate confirmed him with a— with bipartisan support. As commissioner, he has worked in a nonpartisan manner to address illegal workplace discrimination and enforced laws as Congress intended. While at the Wage and Hour Division, Mr. Sondolín developed President Trump's independent contractor policy, which empowered millions of workers to earn a living in a manner in which they chose. He has continued to push for the Americans' ability to work as independent contractors at DOL, championing policies that provide regulatory clarity to workers and businesses as to what constitutes an independent contractor. He has also clarified the joint employer standard protecting the American franchise model that employs over 9 million Americans.

The workforce is changing. It will continue to change as technology advances. As Secretary, I am confident that he will protect workers, help businesses create more jobs, and help workers navigate AI-driven changes in the workforce. The apprenticeship model offers a solution, but the current system is too burdensome, and inconsistent state laws confuse workers and businesses alike. We must simplify the registration process to make it faster and easier for employers to offer apprenticeships.

Senator, Senator Banks and I introduced the START Act so industries that are unfamiliar with apprenticeships will be able to easily participate. We must also broaden our retirement system, empowering workers to increase their opportunities to build financial security after finishing their career. Mr. Sondolene is already protecting Americans' retirement. Under his leadership, the Department of Labor ended Biden's pattern of seeking frivolous investigations into large employers for political purposes, ensuring that their work was focused on protecting workers' savings, not chasing headlines. Americans who are saving for retirement should have access to the same variety of lucrative investments as other investors, such as union and government plans.

I'm glad the agency proposed a rule clarifying how retirement plans can safely invest in alternative assets. I'm also glad to see Mr. Sondolene cracking down on unemployment insurance fraud. Lax, lax controls on unemployment insurance systems place money in the hands of criminals instead of Americans trying to find a job and to provide for their families. That's why I and this committee conducted oversight of states with egregious improper payment rates. I commend Mr. Sondolene for demanding immediate action from states and territories so that Americans' tax dollars will be safeguarded.

Thank you, sir, for appearing before the committee. I look forward to hearing more about how you plan to protect workers and create economic growth nationwide. And with that, I recognize Senator Murray. Well, thank you, Chair Cassidy, and thank you, Acting Secretary Sonderling, for being here today. I'm going to be straight where I stand here.

The Department of Labor has a straightforward mission. It's right there in the name. It's not called the Department of Big Business and Billionaires. It is called the Department of Labor. DOL exists to protect the people who do the work in this country.

It exists to make sure an honest day's work means a fair wage, safe workplace, and a voice on the job. That mission is more important than ever since this president and this Congress decided that their policy priorities would be trillions in deficit-busting tax cuts for billionaires and giant corporations and starting new wars in the Middle East. That agenda has worked for the very richest and for defense contractors. Elon Musk became a trillionaire. But the basics— groceries, healthcare, gas— all of that has gotten more and more expensive for regular working people, all while millions of Americans lose their healthcare.

Inflation is sky high, and there is no end in sight to Trump's costly war. That's the state of our economy for working families. Thanks to this president. That's the reality for everyone who doesn't get a tax write-off for a private jet. So now you are here asking this committee for a promotion since your predecessor apparently created such a hostile and scandal-plagued work environment.

She was pushed out. But let's be clear, you are not a bystander to this administration's anti-worker policies and agenda. You were confirmed as deputy secretary in March of last year. You've run it as acting secretary since April. I just talked about the harm this Republican majority has done to our economy, but you have built your own anti-worker record at DOL.

You rescinded the overtime rule in May, slamming the door on time and a half pay for more than 4 million workers who already aren't making much to begin with. At the same time, you're working to rescind the independent contractor rule. You want to let giant corporations classify workers as contractors so they don't have to pay them minimum wage and overtime. A conservative estimate finds this rule would rob workers of $3.7 billion a year. That is an outside outright grift.

You are also pushing a joint employer rule to let giant corporations take advantage of employment structures so they aren't liable. When people like janitors or nurses get a paycheck stolen, or when there are child labor violations or other worker right violations. But here's what every worker watching needs to understand: this department treats its own employees exactly the way it is letting the worst employers treat theirs. For example, Trump's Department of Labor fired 90% of the office that worked to protect workers from discrimination by federal contractors since 1965. And when they did that, they ignored the 4 months notice its own union contract required.

The Department of Labor violating a labor contract. You can't make that up. Then this Department of Labor stood by while this administration stripped collective bargaining rights from more than 1 million federal workers. And you actually helped this administration pressure the federal agency that helps protect our civil servants. And when the Bureau of Labor Statistics did its job and reported honest employment numbers the president did not like, its commissioner was fired with no cause.

Who should call worker— who should workers call when this administration has done— been nothing short of outright hostile towards workers in its policies and toward its own employees? I don't have the time to get into how you've undercut this agency's capacity to crack down on wage theft. Child labor violations. But needless to say, it will not be easy to rebuild what's been broken. Finally, I have to raise something I never imagined addressing in a hearing for a Secretary of Labor.

In January, this department's official account posted a video captioned One Homeland, One People, One Heritage. Remember who you are, American. Historians immediately recognized the echo of the Nazi slogan, one people, one realm, one leader. Nobody had to squint to make that connection. Union leaders condemned that.

Your own career employees called it disturbing. And that was not a one-off. It's been a pattern under your leadership. This department posts constant propaganda about Americanism. You decry globalism and make misleading comments about native-born workers.

It is so apparent this department is posting this kind of garbage as a wink and nod to extremists. And to get a rise out of everyone else who is paying attention. But you need to hear it from somebody. This kind of language and imagery is a disgrace. Mr. Sonderling, Frances Perkins, the woman who we can thank for the minimum wage, for the 40-hour workweek, for Social Security— she built this department to stop employers with records like yours.

So I'll close with this: the 4 million workers whose overtime you shut the door on didn't get a vote on that policy. But I have a vote here in the Senate, and I fear any vote to confirm you is for more of the same— to strip overtime protections for our workers, to undercut our unions, and to let giant corporations get away with robbery. Literally. America does need a labor secretary who understands our workers, who should not be denied overtime pay, or who will be— who will prosecute wage theft and child labor violations, who believes we should increase the minimum wage. Who understands America is way overdue for a national paid leave program, and who will stand up every minute for every worker's right to form a union.

That is just where I stand. Thank you, Senator Kastor. We are— we are joined today by Keith Sunderlin, nominee for Secretary of Department of Labor. He is currently the Acting Secretary of Labor and was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Labor last year. He will be introduced by his home state senators, Senator Rick Scott and Senator Ashley Moody of Florida, both of Florida.

With that, I yield to my colleague, Senator Moody. I was going to defer to my senior senator to go first. All right. Well, thank you. You're welcome.

If you have less hair, you get to go first. Thank you.

Well, first off, first off, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Murray, thank you. Senator Moody, it's an honor to be here in front of this important committee. So I want— it's an honor to be here to introduce a friend of mine and the fellow Floridian, Keith Sonderling, to this committee. A little over a year ago, this committee voted to advance Keith Sonderling to be the Deputy Secretary of Labor. At that time, I expressed my utmost confidence in Keith to fulfill the role of Deputy Secretary.

The results speak for themselves, and he is without a doubt qualified to serve as the next Secretary of Labor. Throughout his career, Keith has proven time and again his deep respect for the rule of law and standing up for the American worker.. He is committed to making America the best place to get a job. 14 Years ago, I was honored to appoint Keith to serve on the Florida Judicial Nominating Commission when I was governor. Throughout his tenure, he thoroughly vetted a record number of judicial candidates to serve on Florida's most important appellate benches.

Following his service to the people of Florida, Keith took opportunities to serve all Americans in the federal government. During President Trump's first term, he served at the Department of Labor, where he oversaw a record number of enforcement actions. Keith's exceptional record and work ethic later led President Trump to nominate him to serve as commissioner at the Equal Opportunity Commission— Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. There, Keith worked to protect every American who came before the commission from arbitrary and illegal discrimination in the workplace. He has served faithfully, earned the respect of his employees, wisely managed its $14 billion budget, enforced over 180 laws to protect the American worker.

During this transitional period where he served as acting secretary, He embraced the role of— he embraced the role confidently, providing stability and steady leadership. He's gone above and beyond to reach out to Americans and provide them with guidance and resources to navigate our country's labor laws. As long as I've known him, Keith has served the hardworking people of Florida and this country with distinction. And there is no one I know more qualified to be the next Secretary of Labor. I urge all the members of this committee to favorably report him to the full Senate so that we can swiftly confirm him.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and good luck.

Senator Moody. Thank you. Thank you for being here, Senator Scott. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my great honor to introduce one of Florida's own, not just a Florida citizen and one of my constituents, but a University of Florida Gator.

Coach gets upset when I do that. But we're going to do it anyway. UF alumni, Blue Key alumni, and I am told, Mr. Chairman, that there is a slew of Florida Gators in the audience. Can you guys stand up so I can see you? I don't know, maybe a little Gator chomp for the pictures.

Good to see you. Thank you for being here to support Keith. The committee will be adjourned.

He always tries to hold me in contempt, but I was a judge and I used to teach contempt. Like today, I'm a big LSU fan. I am a USC Tiger fan, Chairman. I have known Keith for some time and can confidently say he is more than qualified to be our nation's Secretary of Labor. Under his leadership, the department is putting American workers and American industry first.

He has been aggressively pursuing workforce development and pro-growth regulatory reforms. He's collaborated with other agencies to break the fraud economy across the nation and cut down on wasteful spending. He's helped ensure our job numbers continue to beat expectations. I have to personally say, as AG, I had to litigate to push back against the last administration who tried to overrule our policymakers, our people, and some of our laws. I had to file suit as attorney general.

I can say without a doubt, he came in, understood our concerns, got right to work to determine what was best for Florida and respecting our legislatures on behalf of the people's ability to determine what is best for our state and our citizens. I am confident he is the leader the Department of Labor needs to meet the moment, strengthen our workforce, support our economy, restore prosperity. I want to thank his wife Farrah, his parents Barbara and Howard for being here today. I can honestly say I have watched him in his prior roles. He is the type of individual that doesn't seek fanfare or self-promotion.

He just puts his head down and does the work, good work. And I have often found over the course of my career when I'm talking to others, opportunity often follows. And I think that this is a great example of that. Keith, um, our state is proud of you. Our university is proud of you.

I know those in the audience are here with you to support you, are proud of you. And I know that your approach to this position is informed by many things, not just your education or your professional experience, but your family relationships. And hearing some of the comments in introduction, I know both of your grandparents were Holocaust survivors. That, that, that leads you and inspires you in your work on behalf of workers that came here to the United States. I hope you'll elaborate on that a little bit for the information and consideration of all of my colleagues here today.

So thank you. Good luck. We—. I support you fully. I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

And I would be remiss if I didn't conclude by saying go Gators. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, we'll begin questioning. I will defer to Senator Collins. Oops.

Sorry. I just, I just texted my staff for a cup of real coffee. Now you understand why. So, Mr. Sundelin, your opening statement. I'm sorry.

Well, thank you to Senator Scott and Senator Moody for that very kind introduction. Chairman Cassidy, Senator Murray, and members of the committee. It's an honor to once again appear before you. For the third time, this time as President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Labor. Every member of this committee can agree on one thing: American workers are the best in the world, and they deserve a Labor Department that is effective, accountable, and responsive to their needs.

Serving the American people at the Department of Labor has been the greatest honor of my life. It would not have been possible without President Trump's vision,, and leadership. I am grateful for the trust he has placed in me and for the opportunity to serve American workers, retirees, unions, and job creators. Above all, I want to thank my family, my wife Farrah, our two boys Spencer and Barron, and my parents Howard and Barbara. Before public service, I practiced labor and employment law in Florida.

I saw firsthand how the department's policies impact workers and businesses. I then joined President Trump's administration in 2017 as a senior policy advisor at the Department of Labor. There, I learned the mission from the ground up, benefiting every day from the knowledge, experience, and dedication of my colleagues. Over time, I was entrusted with increasing responsibility, eventually leading one of the department's largest enforcement agencies. President Trump later nominated me as a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where I served until 2024.

I also taught the laws the department enforces as an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School. I then led President Trump's labor transition team before returning to the department on Inauguration Day. Few people have had the opportunity to experience the department from so many different perspectives. From the outside in private practice, as a policy advisor, as an agency head, as an adjunct professor, as Deputy Secretary, as Acting Secretary, and now as the nominee for Labor Secretary. These experiences have prepared me to lead this department with a deep understanding of its mission, its people, and most importantly, the Americans we serve.

The story of the American worker is the story of America itself. As we celebrate 250 years of American independence, we honor the men and women who built our nation. And thanks to President Trump's leadership, the American worker is once again the center of the nation's economic agenda. Since President Trump took office, more than 900,000 private sector jobs have been created. Wages are rising.

401S have reached record highs, and more Americans are working today than at any time in our nation's history. President Trump promised to reindustrialize America and transform our economy. Now, trillions of dollars in new investments are revitalizing manufacturing, rebuilding our infrastructure, expanding domestic energy production, increasing our shipbuilding capacity, and positioning the United States to lead in biotechnology AI, and quantum computing. The working families' tax cuts are delivering for American workers. No tax on tips and no tax on overtime are putting thousands of dollars back into the pockets of the hardworking Americans who keep this country running.

As promised, President Trump's pro-growth agenda is creating unprecedented opportunities for American workers through manufacturing expansion and business investment. My responsibility is to ensure the American workforce has the skills to to seize the opportunities while protecting their safety, while protecting their wages, and while protecting their retirement benefits. Under President Trump's leadership, we are restoring compliance assistance, pursuing rulemaking that replaces uncertainty with clarity, expanding retirement investment opportunities, promoting competition in prescription drug pricing, and helping more Americans start families. And as a member of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, I've worked directly with Vice President Pence to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, ensuring that taxpayer dollars serve Americans and not fraudsters. President Trump has always understood the American people are the foundation of our nation's strength and prosperity.

And thanks to President Trump, the world once again knows that the American worker is our greatest competitive advantage. I am grateful for the trust the President has placed in me and for the opportunity to help fulfill his promise to all Americans. You have my commitment that I will continue working every day to faithfully carry out the mission that has guided my service at the department since my first day nearly a decade ago. Thank you. And I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. And now again, I will defer to Senator Collins to open question. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

Thank you. Senator Kaine and I have introduced the Religious Workforce Protection Act to allow foreign-born religious workers in the United States to continue to perform their essential work in communities across our nation. Our bill is narrow. It would allow the extension of temporary R-1 status for religious workers past 5 years until he or she receives the decision on the permanent EB-4 visa application. Unfortunately, under an interpretation— and I realize this is by the State Department— in 2023, Many religious workers have to leave our country and the communities they serve for at least one year before returning to their spiritual service.

In Maine, local communities have faced challenges because of this policy. Of the 50 Catholic parishes in Maine, 35 benefit from the ministry of priests from other countries. Recently, 3 Catholic parishes in rural Maine communities— St. Agathe, Bucksport, and Greenville— were left without any priests for months. Many different faith organizations have endorsed our legislation, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Rabbinical Council of America, and the National Association of Evangelicals. Important, our bill does not allow entry for any person who is not already permitted under the law to enter the United States.

Under your leadership, would the Department of Labor support this much-needed targeted change in policy? Well, thank you for the question, and obviously religious workers are our workers too, and you have my full commitment. And I understand there's a shortage in some of the workforce when it also comes to religious workers, so we will help you, and I will work personally with Secretary Rubio and Secretary Mullen to make sure that you have the proper technical assistance so we can help this very important group come and stay in the United States. Thank you very much. You have previously shared with the committee that your parents survived the Holocaust, as Senator Mooney mentioned.

But you've also told us that they later lost out on employment opportunities based solely on their religious beliefs. What role do you believe the Department of Labor should take in protecting American workers against religious discrimination? It's a very important role for the federal government to play to protect workers and religions of all faith. And that's what you have my commitment to do. We've been doing that significantly.

We set up a Center for Faith at the Department of Labor. We're the first time we've made a website with all 50 states, and you can click on your state and see what your religious protections are to see if you are discriminated in the workplace, where you can come and get the DOL resources, get the EEOC resources or state resources. But my family's personal story, as you heard, both my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. They came over here before some of these laws were in place, and they were were discriminated based upon that and weren't given the employment opportunities that others were going solely based upon their religion. And unfortunately, we still see that today.

And that's a very important role that, that we have in this administration to root out all religious bias, including antisemitism. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission continues to bring those cases. We put out more guidance for religious workers to be able to come forward. Also, too, it's religious discrimination if religious organizations can't get the same federal services that other organizations could get. So we've reversed some of the policies from the Biden administration that discouraged that, and in our funding agreements that go out, we make sure that religious organizations too know that they're going to be on equal footing to other types of organizations, even though they're religious organizations, to participate in federal government programs.

So it's very important to me, it's very important to the president. He's issued ex— executive orders on antisemitism, on anti-Christian bias, and on religious discrimination as a whole. And we will prosecute those cases as equally as we will any other case. Thank you. Finally, and I'm almost out of time, I had numerous disputes with your predecessor over Job Corps.

Job Corps has been an enormously successful program that has truly changed the lives of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, giving them the skills, the sense of belonging, the confidence that they need to be successful. And as you know, under your predecessor, the two Job Corps centers in Maine were forced to pause their enrollment. They now have restarted up. And they truly have been so successful. But I want to just submit my question for the record, but I just want you to be aware of a bill that Senator Jack Reed and I introduced that would provide greater alignment between the jobs that are available in the defense industry and the skills that Job Corps is teaching.

It ensures automatic employment for Job Corps graduates who can choose to go into the workforce, the military, or continue with higher education. And Leslie, we talked about this at the budget hearing, I think you and I are going to go to a Job Corps center in Maine in August together, so I look forward to continue to working with you and looking at that legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Veteran senator who starts her final statement with 7 seconds left and then goes a minute. Sorry, I apologize, I really do.

Senator Murray. Thank you. Acting Secretary Sonderling, right now you are working with Secretary McMahon to take over the Department of Education programs to help Trump abolish that department. It makes zero sense that DOL, an agency whose expertise is in supporting wage earners and job seekers, that it's being tasked now with taking over complex education programs from the Department of Education to help kindergartners and elementary school students. Do you know how many programs at the Department of Labor are focused on elementary school students?

I, I can tell you that it makes a lot of sense for us to work with the Department of Education. You know, the education—. I asked you a specific question. I have very little time. So do you know how many programs?

We have our IAA agreements under the Economy Act that allows us to provide services—. I'm asking if you know how many are focused at— I'll tell you, the answer is none. None of them. And that is concerning because while some offices within your department are taking on a set of responsibilities they have no experience dealing with, they're also struggling to manage their own grant programs. As recently as this last January, a report from the DOL Inspector General noted The Employment and Training Administration is, quote, challenged in effectively managing its grant portfolio.

So Acting Secretary Sonderling, do you believe it's a smart management decision to add more grant responsibilities to an agency that is consistently unable to handle those tasks? I think it makes a lot of sense. Our systems at the Department of Labor are more sophisticated, based on prior reports and implementing on those recommendations, than the Department of Education system. They were on a legacy G5 system. We use GrantSolutions.

Which is the same system that we owe in Title funds, are distributed both from the labor side and from the education side to the same states. And from an efficiency standpoint, from the states who take this money, they're used to having to go to education and labor. The IAA is not dealing with policy. It's dealing with providing the Department of Education a service. And, and I can tell you that the Department of Education career staff have been detailed to the Department of Labor, and they're making those policy decisions regarding the Pre-K through 12 program.

Regarding OCTAE, regarding those other decisions where the Department of Labor is assisting them on the back end with these grant systems, working with states, and the states love this. 21 States have now submitted a joint plan for efficiency to getting that very important money to pre-K to 12 institutions. Let me just say—. In a more efficient way than education can do. I appreciate smart new reforms, but the facts are that these arrangements have been very wasteful.

One of them cost taxpayers an extra $1 million, and the rest, the administration has refused now to tell us for months how much they cost or really anything else, despite bipartisan demands for that information. And it's not working. In one case, ED transferred responsibilities to you only for you to have that— to have to send that back to another department because DOL lacked the expertise. On July 1st at midnight, $1.5 billion came over to the Department of Labor. It was out by 1:00, 2:00 in the morning.

There was no lack. The money went out to the states in our updated system, and the Department of Labor will continue to provide those services under the IAAs, which are lawful under the Economy Act, and also is most efficient for taxpayers and the states getting these monies. So, I'll just say again, I just have to tell you, Americans want an agency that is focused on the education of early learners all the way through. They don't want it shuffled off to another department that they can't find out the information or don't have expertise to do it. That's my opinion.

Let me move on here because I just have a minute left. The Labor Department founding mission is, quote, to promote the welfare of wage earners. You've run this department for 3 months, and in that time you formalized taking overtime away from 4 million people, moved to cut care workers' minimum wage, teed up longer hours for 14-year-olds, and defended a budget that leaves workers in the dust. So let me be very specific. Specific question.

On July 2nd of last year, DOL proposed a new rule about wages and overtime pay for home care workers. If this draft rule is finalized, how many workers will be stripped of minimum wage and overtime protections? This is a very complicated issue that we've worked on for a long time, and the, the current rule, you know, has essentially created a secondary market where workers are not getting overtime, they're not getting protections, those who are, you know, receiving the services aren't going through companies to get the proper background checks. So this rule will allow third parties to come back in to properly manage the payroll, to properly manage their ability to do background checks and have more workers in continuity of care. What the prior rule did was it chopped up— the people weren't getting overtime.

When 40 hours hit, they would get a different person. I'm out of time, and I'm going to correct the record here because if the If this draft rule is finalized, which is what my question was to you, it is 3.7 million workers, home care workers, who will be stripped of minimum wage and overtime protections. That's how many home care workers the department is ripping away minimum wage and overtime protections from. And Mr. Chairman, to me, that is anti-worker. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. I will defer to Senator Marshall. Well, thank you, Chairman. I want to start, of course, welcoming Secretary Sunderling. Thank you for being here as well.

I want to start by just about what I consider one of the greatest pro-worker agendas that we've ever seen accomplished over the last 2 years. The Working Family Tax Cuts bill with Republicans-only votes, no taxes on tip, no taxes on overtime, absolutely pro-worker. We've seen great private sector job growth, 600,000 private sector job growth. Because of the President's trade and tariff policies, we're bringing jobs back home and manufacturing is great again. And one of the big pro agenda, pro-worker agenda I've seen is an emphasis on apprenticeships and workforce Pell Grant.

Maybe just speak a moment. Did I miss anything in that agenda? You did. There's so much. The Working Family Tax Cuts passed by this Senate and promoted by the president has just done so much for the American workers.

Most people on TV hear no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, which is great. But there's so many other beneficial provisions to workers. And you can break it down in two ways. Ones of how we create more jobs and get more hours. So the 100% deduction on new equipment is allowing companies to buy new state-of-the-art safe equipment, install them, be more productive, take 100% tax credit that year, freeing up money they would be paying in taxes to hire more workers, to give to more overtime.

In addition to the depreciation on expanding American manufacturing, no interest on the loans on the cars bought in America. So, so many other great things on the business side. But really for the workers, you hit the nail on the head when it comes to workforce, pal. Something else, a big priority for you and me are our tech colleges, our community colleges, and the flexibility in the Pell Grants, apprenticeships. Maybe just speak about the priority and what the future looks like for them.

And also using— being able to use 529 accounts for vocational schools for registered apprenticeships that otherwise were locked up in those 4-year degrees. And that's going to allow certificate programs 8 to 15 weeks where we know there's a lot of jobs. And that's been a cost prohibition for a lot of employees because they can't afford those certificates. They weren't able to get financial aid. Now Workforce Pell is allowed to do that.

But ultimately, it leads into the— where department wants to go to fill all these jobs that President Trump has created is through registered apprenticeships. You know, getting people out of high school into high-paying, high-skilled registered apprenticeships, working with local community colleges. And we see community colleges as one of the biggest pieces of this puzzle. To be able to help employers, help small businesses design the curriculum to get workers right out of high school into the trades and also have them design those courses. So thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts, we've just seen so many benefits continue to benefit the American worker, not just putting more money in their pocket, but also creating opportunities that didn't exist before.

So thank you for—. If Senator Moody can bore us with her gator chop, I want to give a Go Grizzlies sign for my alma mater community college, Butler County Community College, back home that my wife and I both graduated from. We don't have a chomp or anything, but go Grizzlies. I got a one-off issue I promised I would run by you from our state treasurer back home, Stephen Johnson, a good friend of mine. And I have not brought this to your attention, you're welcome to follow up, but retirement plans lose track of their people sometimes.

Then a person hits the age of 65, the retirement plan can't find the person, Somewhere 4 or 5 years ago, we decided the state should figure this out, and there was a rule drafted in 2023 that was never finished. And unfortunately, they had a lower cap of $1,000, which is artificially low. I'm asking you to commit to finishing the rule surrounding this, hopefully with no cap, so the states can start working on getting people money back to them. This is an important issue because you're talking about retirees who have vested in their 401s but forgot they worked at that company, forgot ever had it. And it may be around $2 trillion out there of vested retirees who are not being able to find where their 401s are.

So the department is really looking at this. We're looking at ways to work with employers to come to us. We have a lost and found website where somebody can go type in their employer and see if they had a 401 there, but that takes the employer giving us that information. That takes working with the plan sponsors and saying, give us your rolls of who your Will you commit to finishing the rule? I will commit to that, and we will look at that de minimis exception too.

But the most important thing is we need businesses to have a safe harbor to be able to give that information. I got 30 seconds left. I want to touch ESOPs, franchises, and unions. Okay. So I don't know, any thoughts?

You know, we want to— Republicans are trying so hard to be pro-union. I was raised in a union town. Just speak what you can do to help union workers back, back home? What's your vision to help those folks out? Well, union workers are American workers, and they're also the backbone of our country.

So we continue to make policies to make sure that other industries are also getting into registered apprenticeships, which unions have done very well. And I've talked to all the major union leaders, seeing what they do to how they get so many people in the trades, how they get so many people into high-paying, high-skilled jobs. I'm trying to take that model and work with other industries, and they're very open to working together because they want the American workforce to succeed. They want it to be with American workers. All the new jobs the president has created, you know, we're all going to work together to put the American worker first in that equation, and I see both support from unions and management on that.

I don't have time to ask you about ESOPs and franchises, but we'll keep having those conversations too as priorities. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, sir, Senator Kaine. Mr. Chair, good to see you again.

Mr. Sondraling, um, first, uh, congratulations to the committee. I don't want it to go unnoticed that the Older Americans Act reauthorization passed the Senate floor a couple days ago. We worked on it like a year and a half ago, um, and it got held up at the end of the last Congress, but it passed out of the Senate a couple days ago. We all worked pretty hard on that. Hopefully the House will act.

Um, Mr. Sondraling, your testimony is as I would I'm very positive about the state of the economy and the Trump administration's accomplishments. People don't like being told everything's great when their lives are telling them otherwise, and I just got to put on the record a Gallup poll in May showed that confidence in the economy is at its lowest in the last 5 years, and the Gallup poll suggested 76% of American adults think the economy is getting worse, and 20% think it's getting better. So I guess it's getting better for 20%, or they think it is, but to tell three-quarters of the American public everything's rosy and everything's going well, it just doesn't square. It's kind of— there's a punchline to an old joke: what are you going to believe, you know, me or your own eyes? People's own eyes are telling them this economy isn't working.

And that was a poll in May, and I would venture to suggest it's gotten worse since. Polling— not polling, data just came out that says, for example, Virginians have paid $1.8 billion more in gasoline since the war in Iran began on February 28th than they would have paid had we not started a foolish war and led to the closing of the Straits of Hormuz. And it's not just gas, it's inflation on everyday goods and groceries, and that was the data in the Gallup poll about why people are feeling bad. I know that folks with the administration are duty-bound, and I would expect that I'd probably do the same thing of, you know, putting the best face on the evidence, but I just have to say that the American public is feeling the evidence, and they're feeling really sour about the American economy right now. I noticed yesterday the president restarted tariff imposition, and he started with Brazil because he doesn't like the fact that Brazil is prosecuting a friend of his.

Brazil is a nation where we have trade surplus, not a trade deficit, so it's odd that the president is deciding, "I want to put tariffs on Brazilian products," when we've got a surplus with them. Here's what I want to ask you about. The Department of Education has entered into 14 interagency agreements, and Senator Murray talked to you about them. Last year, states including Virginia reported a lot of funding delays and administrative confusion following the transfer of the career and technical education services to DOL. And months later, the Department of Ed decided to move K-12 and other higher ed programs to the DOL.

Now, just the magnitude of these programs: 9.8 million kids in rural schools, 5 million English language learners, 1.1 million students who are experiencing homelessness, 600,000 Native students, 26 million kids in Title— in schools that are Title I schools, which are about 80% of the school districts in the country. That's all been foisted over onto the Department of Labor. That was not your choice, that was the, the president's choice. But as the nominee to be Secretary of Labor, can you tell me— there's some foundational pillars for the IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act. Do you know what those foundational pillars are?

I do not. That's a Department of Education program. But I would, to the extent we have the administration duties to administer that to the states, it will let me rely on the career education staff. Yeah, let me tell you what the pillars are. Sure.

Okay, because this is something that some think should be pushed over to DOL. The pillars of the IDEA are Free Appropriate Public Education, Least Restrictive Environment, Individualized Education Plan, appropriate evaluation, parent-student participation, and procedural safeguards. And these are not minor matters to parents who have kids with disabilities. I have a letter, Mr. Chair, that I'd like to introduce into the record, and it's a letter signed by individuals who served in 9 Republican and Democratic presidential administrations.

Including President Trump's first term, who were responsible for overseeing the implementation of the IDEA, saying that they do not think it should be moved out of the Department of Education, if I could submit it for the record. Without objection.

Do you know the name of the program that funds after-school and summer school programs? I am— that is a Department of Education program. I would— I do not know the specific name, but—. The name of that program is—. —The career staff detail from the Department of Education I would rely on.

Yeah, the name of the program is the 21st 21st century community learning centers. How about expertise in the Higher Education Act? In your previous roles, have you had to focus on the Higher Education Act? We believe that higher education and workforce development are linked. We've had some discussions about OCTAE, and also there's a lot of studies done that these programs should potentially be at the Department of Labor because ultimately you go to school to get a job.

But in your experience in the past, have you done work on the Higher Education Act? I have not, but I would rely on those who have. And that's not a fault of yours. You've done certain things and you haven't done other things. But to take these major programs that affect millions of people and push them over to the DOL, I'll just say, Mr.

Chair, last— I'll just make one long sentence. There's a right way to do reform. Come to the committee and say, hey, look, this is in statute, but there's a better way to do it. So let's work on a better way to do it. The wrong way to do it is to treat the DOE like it's a furniture store and having a discount going out of business sale and hand off pieces willy-nilly to agencies that don't have the expertise to deal with them.

And that's my concern about what's happening right now. Thank you. I yield back. Uh, I will defer to Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Sonnenlink, good to see you. Welcome. I enjoyed our conversation a few days ago. It's great to see you here. Let me start with something you and I talked about then and that you talked about last time you were before this committee, which is artificial intelligence and the effect that that's going to have on the job market.

The St. Louis Federal Reserve recently issued a report in which they said we may be witnessing the early stages of AI-driven job displacement. The IMF, International Monetary Fund, estimates that 40% of jobs at least worldwide are exposed to AI, so could suffer from AI job displacement. My question to you is this: what do we need to be doing as a government, and more specifically, what does DOL to be doing now to be getting our workers in the country ready for the impacts of AI and maybe more importantly, helping them keep their jobs, use whatever artificial intelligence is going to be integrated into the workplace to improve their productivity and their wages. I mean, should we be able to agree that the goal here ought to be not to lose jobs? We don't want that.

We want to see wages go up. We want to see more opportunities for workers. How are we going to get there? We want to see more jobs in this, and there is the potential to do that. And this is where really this administration is taking this very seriously, both from a national competitive perspective but also from a workforce development side.

You know, we're working very closely with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education to develop that AI curriculum that China has, and they're teaching them in the second grade and we're not doing that. But how do we get that curriculum? How do we actually teach? If you teach somebody on AI right now, in 2 months, it may be outdated. So that's really where the partnership of where we're trying to take to get that education, to get that curriculum into the education system.

We need to be talking to the employers and the tech companies who are— employers who are buying this and the tech companies who are designing this. And that's where the issue has been, not getting that information from them, not having those partnerships and not sharing them. And that's what I'm trying to solve. We're launching the AI Action Work Hub, which is allowing us now to enter into MOUs with both tech developers and companies who are deploying this to number one, see what the real impacts are, see how these programs are being designed to backtrack that number one into the education system, but more importantly, to make sure that American workers and students have those baseline skills they need. Because right now you have kids in high school, you have kids in middle school who think they're not going to have a job, and you have employees who think they're going to lose their job.

So the fear on both parts is not helping anybody. And to be able to get rid of that fear, we need to have education. To be able to get that education, we need the information from these companies designing it. So we've been able to enter into MOUs, and we want the Bureau of Labor Statistics to take this over, get them that information so they can actually see if it's job loss, job augmentation, to be there to help them on both sides. You, you anticipate what I want to ask you about next, which is, isn't it important— it seems to me it's important— that we get all the data we can about AI job impacts in terms of jobs it's creating, jobs it is costing, how it is being integrated into the workforce.

Senator Warner and I have a bill that would do this, co-sponsored by various members of this committee. But what would be even better is if DOL would, would do this on its own accord. You and I talked about steps you're already taking. Maybe tell us that for the record. What are you doing in terms of collecting this information that I think is vital for us to know what is really happening with AI in the workforce?

We're trying to control the narrative from the doom and gloom that's out there, which is largely consultant-driven. It's largely tech company-driven, saying we have these products, it's going to eliminate 10,000 workers. How does that make the American worker feel? And we don't even know if businesses are actually implementing this or these tools can actually do what they say they're trying to do. So that's where we're really trying to get that information.

And what we believe is we're going to see is that AI-impacted jobs can potentially make you more productive. It can make your workplaces safer, but we can't get that information yet. So we have MOUs. We're part of our AI action plan and we're getting that data from Fortune 500 companies. We're getting it from tech companies, we're getting it from unions, and we're gonna take that data and for the first time have BLS look at it and say, well, here's where the impact actually is.

And more importantly, here's what you need to do, DOL, to get money to the state workforce agencies, to get money through the Department of Education, um, to train those workers. That's never happened before. The second part, we just issued an RFI last week through BLS. To have the time study that BLS does include AI. So now they're going to ask people, how much AI do you use at home?

How much AI do you use at work? So in the meantime, before we get it from the employers and tech companies, we're going to get it from the American workers who are being impacted instantly, and we'll be able to see what they're doing. Good. That's good. We need that data.

We need it in order to make informed choices. And I think we've got a lot of hard choices to make with regard to AI. I want to show you a picture now related to Amazon. Here's our friends at Amazon. This is what appears to be an Amazon employee.

She's wearing the Amazon logo. She's carrying an Amazon box. She's wearing an Amazon hat. She's driving an Amazon truck. She's totally at Amazon's— under Amazon's control.

And yet Amazon wants the American people to believe, and more importantly, the government to believe, that they don't have any control over all of this, that Amazon is just a simple franchisor, just like McDonald's, and that these are all— that this is— she's independent. The truck driver is independent. They're This is the most ludicrous farce. Amazon controls all of this, and they're trying to game the system so that they get treated like a local franchisor in Springfield, Missouri, where I'm from, who owns a local McDonald's, has his whole life savings tied up in it. Amazon controls all of this.

Here's my point. I know you're working on revising the joint employer rule. It is absolutely vital that the joint employer rule not excuse Amazon's ridiculous efforts to game the system and prevent people like this from being treated well, getting a good paycheck, and getting healthcare. And that's exactly what they're trying to do. They are one of the richest companies in the history of the world, and they want to be treated like they're a small business.

They're not a small business. They're a monopolist. And I urge you to write that rule in such a way that Amazon is treated as they should be treated and that local small businesses are protected. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, for this hearing. Welcome, Mr. Sonderling. I'd like to associate myself with the last comments Senator Hawley made about joint employment rule. It's really important to get this right, and I appreciate his comments.

I also just wanted, before asking you a couple of questions, to just note that Joint Economic Committee has found that over— since President Trump took office, we've lost nearly 100,000 manufacturing jobs. So the manufacturing sector is not doing a-okay. It's losing jobs. What I hear in New Hampshire, it's all about tariffs. Americans have paid $56 billion more for gasoline, works out to about $477 per household since this war of choice started.

My constituents are desperately worried about high costs in every part of life that they absolutely have to be able to pay for, from healthcare to rent to childcare to gas. So, um, just wanted to give you that perspective, um, on the economy from data and from what we're hearing from our constituents. Um, other thing I want to just follow up on briefly is Senator Kaine's questions about the IDEA. Uh, as you probably know, as my colleagues know, I have an adult son with disabilities. The IDEA meant that he was able to go to school, uh, with his peers in our public school system.

Where he was treated as an individual and people learned how to actually communicate with him and educate him. Took a teacher realizing that Ben laughed whenever other kids in the room got the wrong answer, which means my son was mean but smart.

Took the IDEA, made it possible for people to realize he could raise a hand to say yes or no and interact with material because he He's nonverbal. Before the IDEA, children like my son were stigmatized, stereotyped, institutionalized. And the point of the IDEA is to make sure that all children, kids with disabilities, without disabilities, get the kind of education where their needs are individually met. And while I am a strong supporter of community colleges and CTEs, kids should have a choice about higher education, vocational education. Um, the IDEA gives kids with disabilities the same platform, the same opportunity as kids without, and it's critically important that people with the expertise in educating our children are running this program, reforming this program as it may need to be.

So I share the concerns here about having IDEA transferred into the Department of Labor. Now let me get to my questions. During your confirmation hearing last year, I gave you an opportunity to commit that you would follow the law if confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Labor. I was disappointed and concerned by your unwillingness last year to make that commitment. So I'm going to give you a chance to answer the question again.

If directed by the president to take an action that would break the law, would you follow the law or follow the president's directive? Like I said last year, the president wouldn't have me do that. And I would follow the law. And I said last year I would follow the law, and I will follow the law. Well, the first part of your answer is the problem because there's almost daily evidence now of the president directing people or breaking the law himself.

Now let's go on to another question. You were appointed last month by the president to serve as acting director for the Office of Government Ethics. Its mission is to, quote, to prevent financial conflicts of interest and other violations of the ethics rules, close quote. Throughout the executive branch. To help me understand the level of judgment that you would bring to the role of secretary, are there any actions that the Trump administration has taken in the last year that you have ethical concerns about or see as a financial conflict of interest?

Uh, in my position as the Director of Office of Government Ethics, which I take seriously— I've taken ethics seriously my entire career, when I was at my law firm, when I was at DOL, when I was at the EEOC— This is very important to me. It's an honor the president has selected me to write. So let's get to the question because I've got just about a minute left. Are there any actions that the Trump administration has taken in the last year that you have ethical concerns about or see as a financial conflict of interest? I would rely and have relied on the career ethics officials at the Office of Government Ethics to make that.

That's not my question. You— I'm, I'm, I'm probing your judgment here. You have been nominated to be a Secretary of the Department of Labor. You are in the position of Deputy Secretary. You have a legal background.

You take ethics seriously. The president personally took in billions of dollars last year per his own financial disclosure reports, raising the question: I thought he was supposed to be President of the United States, not off on side deals. So if he's being— if he's focused on being president, how is this money pouring into his family's, uh, and his own personal accounts. Um, he received a jet from Qatar, and we had to spend $400 million of taxpayer money to retrofit that jet. He instructed, uh, his lawyers and the Department of Justice to enter into a sham lawsuit and settlement against the IRS.

None of that gives you ethical concern? The president has always followed the ethical rules. All his financial disclosures have been certified by career ethics officials, and he is committed and his family have committed to have no conflicts of interest. And that's exactly what we're seeing, which is why his sons just invested heavily in defense industry that will have possible contracts with the Department of Defense. That's just a really disappointing answer.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator. I shall defer to Coach Tuberville. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sutherland, welcome.

Glad you're here. I haven't seen this many Gators in a long time in one spot. I think I recognize a few throwing stuff at me when I used to coach down there. You know, I can't think of other than Jordan-Hare Stadium. Senator Moody doing that.

Yeah. Other than Jordan-Hare Stadium and Bryant-Denny Stadium, the Swamp, Ben Hill Griffin is a hard place to play. And I really enjoyed kicking y'all's ass when I came down there. So. Because of that.

But welcome and thanks for what you've done. You've done an outstanding job. We're looking for you to continue that. You know, you, you're a member of Vice President Pence's task force team to try to stop this abysmal amount of fraud and money being stolen from the taxpayers. $100 Million an hour, the last I heard.

I can't imagine that. And, uh, sir, you're on that task force. Are you working with the states? How are you collaborating with the states to get this done to stop this damn fraud? So my role on the task force is related to unemployment insurance fraud, and Department of Labor plays a significant role in making sure that there's no fraud, because all fraud is a theft on taxpayer dollars.

And what we saw in the unemployment system during COVID time, $135 billion was stolen, gone. Stolen by crime, stolen by foreign actors. Social Security numbers were being stolen. Millions of dollars were going out to people in jail, to dead people. Somebody who was born in the year 2154 successfully applied for unemployment insurance and was able to get it.

So countless stories like that hurts the American workers who actually need that money. So under the Vice President's leadership on the task force, we have the license now to finally stop this and go after states that are not complying. So I sent a letter to 53 governors and governors of territories basically saying that we are tired of the fraud and we want you to put these measures in for the fraud to stop. And if you don't, then there's going to be consequences. And there's never been consequences before.

And President Trump is allowing us to do that. So more importantly, we're telling the states is verify first and pay later. Stop paying first and verifying later. And that's how much money has gone out. So really pushing on the states to get the technology to verify who they are.

And we're trying to help them. We want to— we're building a centralized system called unemployment.gov that Alabama is helping us with. And we see, you know, Alabama is an amazing example. You know, they've really gone after this. And when they had improper payments the last 2 years, they got 100% of it back.

They have some of the lowest fraud and improper payment rates in the country because they're verifying. They're going and making sure that person is alive, that person lives in Alabama, that person worked in Alabama. They're going to the employer, "This person work for you or is this a fraudster in China?" And they're doing it and it's showing results. And not only that, they're following up with employers. "Is this person even eligible for it?" And that's not what's happening, you know, specifically in Democrat states like New York that is still paying $2 million out every single day.

So our Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito, We have a partnership together. So I'm doing the front end side where we're going to make sure states like Alabama has done put in those controls, and then we're going to go after those criminals. We're going to go after the frauds with criminal prosecutions through our IG. So this is one of the most important things we could do at the Department of Labor is stop the theft of taxpayer dollars. Yeah, I think AI is going to be the, the key.

I think it's going to be the savior for fraud, especially with— there's no way humans can mentally keep up with $5 trillion a year. We can't do it. I don't care how smart you are. And so we have to have machines to do that. And we got to stop it.

I mean, we're $40 trillion in debt. It's ridiculous. And we're talking about AI earlier with Senator Hawley. I'll be hopefully governor next year of Alabama. We're going to start in the elementary school, start teaching our kids AI.

We can talk about AI all we want. If we don't teach it, it's not going to work. So we have to learn it at a young age. And we're already preparing for that for young kids in elementary school all the way up through high school, and they have to learn to use it the right way, ethically. And, uh, that's the future.

You know, our education system's abysmal right now. It's going to heck in a handbasket. I worked it for 35 years. I know, um, our federal government's being broken because all this fraud, but we have to be able to educate our kids in this AI. Education needs to lead to jobs.

Yeah. A couple other things here I just want to say. We have this 401, uh, plan that we're trying to get through for retirement funds through private equity cryptocurrency. It's called— my bill is called the Freedom Financial Act. We're trying to get it through committee.

And what does all this mean for the average American and their retirement accounts if we can pass a bill like this where they can actually get something out of their retirement? We're very working very hard at the Department of Labor to make sure that 401 plans have access to alternative investments, just like union pensions do, just like state pensions do. Right now, the 401 market is largely in index funds, and those workers deserve private assets. They deserve diversification, just like somebody with a pension plan. So this is one of my top initiatives to make sure that there's parity now between the pension system and the 401 system to be able to diversify.

For individuals, you know, who just have a 401, to get into those private markets that were previously only for accredited investors. This is how President Trump is going to make America wealthy again, by allowing everyone to democratize that access, allow everyone these opportunities outside of just very conservative index funds. And we're at the department, we don't push one fund over the other. We lay the neutral framework and let the employers decide under their fiduciary obligations which is the best for their You don't have to answer this question, but I just want to throw it out there. Our H-1B program sucks.

Okay. Microsoft is firing people and hiring foreign labor, and that's wrong. And we have to hire American workers. And I hope you're on top of that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Senator. Coach, one more important question. What was your lifetime record versus the Gators? Well, 2001 was very hard for us. Yeah.

Now that y'all renamed it. Spur your feel, I'd love to come back down there and kick his butt one more time. So I take it it was good. Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And Mr. Sunil Ling, thank you. Welcome back. Thank you for taking time to meet with me. We talked a little bit about apprenticeships.

The administration has said their intent to expand the number of apprenticeships to eventually reach 1 million. 1 Million.

Many apprentices were pulled off their jobs when the administration canceled various infrastructure projects, clean energy projects. I think we do need novel solutions to get more apprenticeships in place. What's your approach to that? How do we dramatically ramp up the number of apprenticeships to achieve 1 million apprenticeships? Well, it's our goal and the President's goal to get to 1 million active registered apprenticeships.

We believe this is the fastest pathway into the workforce, a debt-free way where students can earn while they learn. But we need to get more employers involved in this. We need to get more industries involved as we see manufacturing coming back, as we see critical infrastructure coming back, as we see these areas where they're very high-paying trade jobs. We need to work both for the students to understand how high-paying these jobs are. Average registered apprenticeship, $86,000.

I get that, and I understand all those arguments. I guess the question I'm asking, and I agree, we've got to persuade parents. We've done this in Colorado with CareerWise and demonstrated it's not that hard. People, parents do see that their kids don't necessarily have to go to college and get a lot of debt. They can go and get— be an apprentice in not only trades, but in banks, insurance companies, you know, all these different other choices.

How long do you think it's going to take to get to 1 million apprentices? We're halfway there. We're almost at 500,000 registered apprenticeships. We've started over 4,000 new programs in this administration. So as we discussed, a lot of this is getting to the parents early in elementary schools, in middle schools, saying this is just as an equal path as college, and you need to start, you know, looking at this as a viable option that you're going to make more without the debt.

$300,000 More in your career if you're an apprentice than not being in an apprenticeship position. So the numbers there, the stats are there. We just— You don't have to persuade me. I'm in. Right?

I'm— That's my job here. I'm trying to push for a sense of urgency that we get there faster and that it's not just restricted to certain people 18 and over, right? In other words, 16-year-old kids, 17-year-old kids can do work in a bank or work in an insurance company a couple days a week while they're in high school and come back and actually learn things that will make them more successful in their jobs. And we're working on industry to do that. And that's a very big part of it.

If starting earlier, either in a full apprenticeship or pre-apprenticeship, that's really how we're going to change the narrative of this and to hit President Trump's goal of 1 million active registered apprenticeships. Appreciate that. There's been Senator Hawley. I watched on TV as he'd done a couple of questions on AI, obviously rapidly making its way into all aspects of the workplace. And I think there we agree that we need to find ways to support workers.

As we go into this, we introduced the AI Workforce Prepare Act with Senator Banks and Senator Hassan, Senator Husted on this, and would direct the Department of Labor to assess AI's impact on the workforce. You've also done work, as you've discussed before, on AI employment during your tenure at the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. At one point, you stated that the less enforcement we have on the federal level, the the better. Is that— that's not universally true though. Less enforcement on the federal level, the better.

I said that's what you're— that's what you say when you make a statement like that. Sometimes it gets taken out of context. I'm giving you a chance to—. Oh yeah, no, I believe the federal government plays a very key role in this. And the most important thing we can do is talk to all stakeholders when it comes to AI.

And it's a much different world than we're normally dealing with. You have everything from the VCs who support it You know, they don't want to give money to a startup that's going to discriminate. A startup doesn't want to create a product that's going to discriminate or harm workers. A company's not going to want to buy a product that does that. And ultimately, the consumers in our case are the employees.

They don't want to be subject to a product that's going to take away their job or discriminate against them. So that's really where I've been working very hard to get everyone to understand that there's longstanding laws, whether it's the National Labor Relations Act from the '30s, the Fair Labor Standards Act from the '30s, the 1960s, Title VII, or even the ADA in the 1990s that equally apply to technology that's out there today and the ones that they're developing. And their products are not going to work. It's not going to help the American worker unless they build, design, and deploy them in relation to how those laws work. And I don't believe we need new laws for that.

We need to advocate for our existing laws and our existing frameworks to apply to this new technology. Right. And I agree that, that those existing laws and setting standards making sure that we have standards that are going to make sure that kids and American people are held safe. And could be, you know, that the tort system will hold AI companies accountable for, you know, damages done to our population. And that's what I discussed with Senator Hawley.

It's building that trust, right, for everyone to be able to want to embrace these tools, use these tools so we can get the benefit from these tools, we can get the productivity from these tools, we can get the potential safety from these tools, but none of that happens without trust. And I believe in the Department of Labor and the EEOC and the NLRB to be able to be a big part of that equation. Right, and that's an alignment of self-interest, so we agree. Trust but verify. Anyway, thank you very much.

Again, I yield back to the chair. Thank you, Senator Hickenlooper. I shall defer to Senator Husted. Thank you, Mr. College football athlete. Yes, although I never played against Florida, thankfully.

So, uh, the, uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, I want to, um, I want to ask you a question about the Working Family Tax Cut Plan, because in there, for the average family of 4 in the state of Ohio, for example, uh, they will see a net $6,000 tax benefit versus what they would have seen if the bill didn't pass. What does that mean? It means a $2,200 per child tax credit. Means no tax on tips, no tax on overtime.

And I've been to factories where I've talked to— I talked to one individual who said he was going to save all of his overtime pay for the whole year and use it to put a down payment, help him get his down payment on a home. How much do you think those policies help families and help add people to the labor force because there's more incentive for them to actually work? As I travel the country, I hear about it all the time. When I go to a restaurant, we hear about how Workers are getting more pay from no tax on tips and then no tax on overtime with more production. The manufacturing index has been up 6 months in a row.

We've created new manufacturing jobs every month this year, more overtime. So we really see it in a lot of different ways. The obvious ones is, say, more take-home pay from no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. It's the largest, obviously, you know, tax bill of all time for getting more money in workers' products, but what I said earlier, they're seeing it in ways a lot of people don't understand. So when that factory can expand for their American production, that is incentivizing companies who have left the United States to come back.

So that's why we're seeing Toyota invest in a new plant, $3 billion to build a Tacoma here. That's why Harley-Davidson is bringing back production to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In Ohio, General Motors continue to make more investments. What does that do? They get the tax deduction from that.

It's creating more production lines, and they'll be able to hire more workers and be more productive. So it really helps the economy in much larger ways than just that for that individual that they don't understand. And that's really the benefit of this bill and why it's so impactful and why it's so revolutionary, why it's creating more private sector jobs. All jobs created in President Trump's second term are in the private sector. That's exactly what he promised.

And that's going to help those workers on the sidelines and those forgotten workers back into the workforce for American high-paying jobs. Let me shift gears quickly to career technical education and apprenticeships. Passion of mine, something I've been involved in and helping grow. Uh, and, and you mentioned, and there's a need. Yeah, there's a need.

We have construction jobs that are growing swiftly in Ohio. We've had— we've added 3,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year. And the apprentices and the and the talent that comes with it, we can graduate people right out of high school, career ready, go from graduating on a Friday to going to work on a Monday, and then have many of them working while they're still in high school. But here's an insidious thing that's happened to this country for those young high school students if they come from the lowest income families. Many of them can't work while they're in high school.

Why? Because their income counts against their parents' income, And many of them are put on the sidelines. And I want to tell you a story, and I want your help with this because I've got a solution called the Upward Mobility Act here in the Senate. I visited Cincinnati Community College and I saw firsthand how the apprenticeship programs work in Ohio. I asked—.

I was with a principal at a career tech facility. He said— he told me about this problem. He said, we have lots of students who can't take these apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships. Work experience because their family would lose their benefits. And I said, how big of a problem is this?

And I met a young lady who, as a junior in high school, moved into a trailer on a vacant lot so that she could go to work and her younger brother and sister wouldn't lose their SNAP benefits. Okay, this is— and I went and I started asking principals all around the state of Ohio at these career centers, said, is this a big problem? They said yes. So we have high school students who could go to work being electricians, plumbers and pipefitters, healthcare, welding, but they can't— autobody, they can't take the jobs because their family would get— they would lose their benefits. And so I have the Upward Mobility Act, which would help fix this issue so that students in high school could actually go to work and then graduate career ready and do what we want them to do, become adults that are part of the workforce living their version of the American dream.

And so I want your reaction to that, and I would like your commitment to work with us to help solve this problem, to help more of America's youth get ahead in life. I, I, you have my commitment to work with you on that, but I do think there's a parallel to the working family tax cuts, the ABLE accounts, um, which the working family tax cuts, uh, increase the limit for, uh, disabled workers to put savings away in is now allowing people to continue with those benefits that they need for their disability and continue to work, save for themselves, and be able to participate in society. So I think the Working Family Tax Cuts has a great example that you've already passed on parallel to the ABLE accounts, but you have my full commitment to helping you with any technical assistance that you need on this. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, this is, um, this is a tragedy that we have created a poverty trap in this country for our lowest-income families and their children.

And I hope that this Congress will fix it. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Sunderling. You are the president's nominee for Secretary of Labor. But you're getting asked a lot of questions about education. And I'm going to continue in that vein for a short while, hopefully then pivot to some more labor-focused issues. But the reason is because this administration and this president is taking repeated action to undermine and dismantle the Department of Education, which is created by Congress and can only be eliminated by Congress.

But they're figuring out all sorts of ways to scatter education programs across the federal government, including at the Department of Labor, creating a system that I believe is much more complicated and much less efficient, particularly for states and public school districts. State and public school districts previously had to work with just one department, Department of Education. Now they're forced to work with multiple departments, multiple grant systems, and it's particularly concerning as this administration continues their dismantling effort for the Department of Education, now moving IDEA and special education to the Department of Health and Human Services. Um, parents and their children really gain nothing from separating federal education programs, and this transfer only undermines services that go to support special education programs. But back to labor, um, I would like to know exactly what is gained by having the Department of Labor administer, for example, the impact aid program?

We can help with efficiency. We can help states and nonprofits get the money that they're entitled to. So on impact aid, are you using the Impact and Grant Systems, IAGS, system that was developed for that purpose in education, or are you transferring it into the Department of Labor grants database that you were just telling me in my office that is so incredibly efficient? We—. The career professionals at the Department of Education are working with the career professionals at the Department of Labor, both who have expertise in this area, to be able to administer all the grants that Congress has given us.

And I can assure you this is being done by the professionals in a way to make it easier for states to get the money. And there's been a lot of complaints from these states. So you think it's a benefit added to move impact aid from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor? Senator, the programs are not being moved under the IAAs. It's an agreement to— think of us as a firm that's just consulting and helping them move these programs money, but not the actual programs themselves.

Those programs still all remain at the Department of Education. They're being run by career experts at the Department of Education. The Department of Labor is— at the Department of Education, but sitting in the Department of Labor for efficiency purposes. We've moved, um, you know, a few tranches of employees to the Francis Perkins Building where they all have their own offices, they all have their own computers, they have parking, and they are working out of that building. What about Title I programs?

How will parents and teachers and students gain from having the Department of Labor administer Title I programs? The Department of Labor administers, you know, WIOA programs under the different titles, and we have the expertise. We know the states. We know the stakeholders in the states. The money flows in the same way through WIOA to the states as it does education.

And what's the measurement will you have, or what sort of evidence will you present, that transferring these programs to Department of Labor has made anything better for students, teachers, parents?

I will, um, provide you with all that data. You have my commitment that I will show you how these programs are being effectively administered, how they're saving taxpayer dollars, and that the Department of Labor is in the best position to do this under the ECONOMIES Act, under longstanding IAAs, which all administrations have used, including—. It'll be very interesting to see your evidence, especially on things like impact aid, why Department of Labor should be better than education. But I'm going to change to something that is squarely under your department. We talked about apprenticeships when we met, and you've gotten several other questions.

Wisconsin has over 17,000 enrolled apprentices right now. And I want to make sure that nothing gets in the way of progress. So do you have any plans to propose rules allowing for industry-recognized apprenticeship programs, IRAPs, or other rules to weaken registered apprenticeship standards? The president's executive order directs us to hit 1 million active registered apprenticeships. I've been out there promoting companies to do registered apprenticeships through the department so we can help them control the curriculum.

We can get the hours in, we can get the OSHA health safety. We believe registered apprenticeships are the way to skill this generation and the next generation of workforce. And that's what we're promoting. That's—. So you have no plans to go forward with IRAP?

The executive order describes registered apprenticeships. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Baldwin. I shall defer to Madam Gator. I like that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank you.

And I want to go back Mr. Sonderling, to how we started the day and your nomination hearing, just to, to again commend you and this administration for really digging in, rolling up your sleeves, trying to course correct for a lot of the things that we previously saw to make sure that we are approaching, approaching government and supporting American workers and American industry and making sure we're looking at our roles through that lens. And I think you've done a dynamic job of that so far. I look forward to you doing that as the permanent head of the agency. In fact, I think when I came in, one of the main reasons I wanted to get up here as a senator was to kind of take a machete to what the last administration done. And if you've listened to all of your questioning today, it was all about freaking out about what's happening to where they were putting money.

Truly, you're— what are you doing with this grant? What are you doing this? Now we're moving it from education to you. Like, everybody is freaking out, and I think the words they use are undermining and dismantling programs. So I just want to make sure that we're all talking about the same thing, because what I watched and what I had to litigate against as the Attorney General for Florida in the last administration, when we had a chief executive asleep at the wheel and radicals trying to drive the car off a cliff— I mean, it was literally like when I used to pick my kid up from school during free time, and they just got in there and everything was crazy and things were knocked over, things were strewn around, broken.

That's what you had to inherit. And since this administration has been in office, you have helped with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. I mean, we are watching what that is doing in terms of redirecting where Washington is keeping money, not giving it over to bureaucrats that want to spend it on crazy things. But keeping it in Americans' pockets, focusing on what America finance— Americans' financial health, Americans' well-being. That's what the people need to restore their faith in this government.

But let's talk about dismantling programs for just one moment. I'll give you the chance to comment on that, because I really, truly think Americans need to understand what happened when they're talking about dismantling climate programs or dismantling any other kind of program, let's talk about that because it infuriates me. And I am so glad there are people like you at the helm to course correct. But, you know, we've— as, as Deputy Secretary— oh, and by the way, I needed to say Florida is now getting the largest average tax returns of any state in the nation due to some of this reoriented policymaking and approach. But under your leadership, and you've gotten a lot of what are you doing with an International Labor Affairs Bureau?

And where all that money is. Can we talk about that? Yeah, a little bit. Before you do, let me just say, under the Biden International Labor Affairs Bureau, and we're all freaking about where money might be canceled or dismantled, is it true that $10 million went to gender equity in the Mexican workplace? $12.2 Million went to worker empowerment in South America.

$5 Million went to elevating women's participation in the workplace in West Africa. 4.3 Million went to assisting foreign migrant workers in Malaysia. 4 Million went to promoting LGBTQI youth inclusion in Brazilian employer value chains. 7 Million went to enable workers in Chile, South Africa, and Colombia to advocate for climate change policy. I know they were really upset that we did away with that.

Is it your intention to make sure some of this money is actually going to help the American workers and American families? It's our duty for all of our grants, all of your taxpayer dollars to go to American workers and to make sure that American workers are getting the first and best opportunities. No one else. It's also our duty at the Department of Labor to make sure that other countries, uh, aren't ripping us off with forced labor and undercutting, you know, our, our system. So, you know, those grants have been canceled and you know what we're doing with those grants instead of what you've listed, $13.8 million is gonna go to help American workers learn shipbuilding, which is a national security concern.

Bringing back shipbuilding to the United States so our military ships aren't getting repaired overseas. So that's how we look at grantmaking. How is it going to benefit the American worker? How are we going to work with industry to make sure that all these 900,000 high-paying private sector jobs, that American workers have the skills needed by talking to employers and then putting out money that way. That's why we have a manufacturing fund for registered apprenticeships in manufacturing, in other industries that benefit American workers, because the American workers are the greatest in the world.

And though that should be our first and only concern, and that's exactly what we've done in the second Trump administration. Now we have something shifting over to your agency as well. I think it's public knowledge, the Perkins grants that go to trade and skills, uh, education. I am very excited about that, and this is why. We are finding out more and more that some of the most well-funded universities that kids are coming out hating our country.

We have given them tax breaks on their endowments, you know, more so than you would the average American that gets a, you know, has a tax obligation from their investment income. We give them tax breaks.

I think it's important that we focus on trade and skills training just as much as we want to focus on opportunities for kids to get a 4-year degree, we should be investing resources, time, and attention to that. So I have a bill called the TRAES Act, which would take that endowment, the ones that are well overfunded, tax it at a fair rate, and redirect that— these are from your elite schools that really are indoctrinating kids and not training them— redirect it to trade schools and through those Perkins grants. And make sure that we are investing in training the next generation, not just indoctrinating the next generation. Are you on board with that? Will you help me do that?

I will help you in that, in our shared journey on that. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Moody. Senator Alsobrooks. Thank you so much, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, Mr. Sonderling, for, for being here today. You know, when we, we last met and had our last exchange was in February. And it was at that time that I asked you a question about whether collective bargaining agreements were legally enforceable. And you shared with me at that time that you were unfamiliar with the collective bargaining process and in fact went on to say that this was basically above your pay grade. It was outside your area of expertise, and that you would, quote, rely on career experts to work on those issues.

And in the weeks that followed, our exchange, and I was horrified to see that this administration took successive actions and steps to undermine the CBAs and federal workers, to hurt federal workers. And it started with the executive order removing collective bargaining rights for large portions of the federal workforce. It is so disturbing to me and really a horrible twist of fate then that we are now faced with your nomination. A person who I have seen aid and abet this president's protracted campaign against federal workers' rights. And so I just want to go back to the basics here and, and ask you, under what statute are collective bargaining agreements enforceable?

It's under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. I didn't say I don't understand collective bargaining. Obviously, I understand collective bargaining. What I was referring to, I think you were asking me about specific contracts that I didn't have. No, no, no.

I remember what I asked. I said, are they legally enforceable? And you said bargaining agreements are legally enforceable and they have been since the 1930s. Well, good. I wish you had said that.

National Labor Relations Act enforces that in the— for private sector. So I'm happy. Federal Labor Relations Act enforces it. Listen, I don't have a lot of time. I'm going to ask another question, but I'm glad to hear that at least in this hearing And you now admit that you do know that the collective bargaining agreements— we can go back and pull the tape where you said different.

But the point of the matter is whether or not you know how federal workers— I would like you to answer this question— how federal workers unions differ from private sector unions. Well, first of all, they all are subject to the Labor Management Relations Disclosure Act of the 1950s that the Department of Labor enforces. For unions like AFGE, they have to do all of our reporting. But they're, you know, they deal with the Federal Labor Relations Authority, where private sector unions deal with the National Labor Relations Authority. So they're two different, you know, they have two different government agencies that enforce them, private sector and then public sector.

But the most important difference between private sector and public sector unions is that public sector unions do not negotiate higher wages. They are not allowed to strike. Like private sector. And so the point of the matter is federal public sector unions are there exclusively to protect the working conditions of federal employees. Correct.

And this is very different than private. So I want you to explain then, why has this administration, if it— if this provides no further tax, this doesn't return money to taxpayers, this does not save taxpayer dollars, why has this administration in such a wicked way attack federal and public workforce unions. Tell us why, why have they attacked federal workers unions? I have not seen them attack any union specifically in the public sector or the private sector. I think this administration respects the law, respects the agencies that enforce them.

Oh Lord, well, we certainly disagree with that if this administration respects the law, but it is also the case—. But if there are issues, there's a government agency the Federal Labor Relations Authority, that will deal with that. And I'm confident of that agency. And, you know, there are Senate-confirmed people there that will make sure that that process is fair. And that's how it works.

But this isn't a matter of dispute. I mean, you can go look at the executive order that literally targets these collective bargaining agreements in these federal agencies. But I want to go to another question. I control the Department of Labor. And we have collective bargaining agreements, which we are abiding by.

And we have good relations. I'm meeting with them in September. So from my perspective, the agency that I hopefully am able to lead, you have my commitment that I will continue to work with the unions, to work with our local unions, and meet with them regularly, which I have done throughout my tenure. Well, I'm glad to hear that. And I have to tell you again, I'm relieved to hear, because the last time— and again, we can just go look at it— when I questioned you about this, It was a different response.

But this is the last question. So national security was invoked to justify the revocation of collecting— collective bargaining agreements across the federal government in March of 2025. And I want you to please explain why the March 2025 executive order applied the exception to agencies that have less of a direct connection to national security, such as the Department of Health and Human Services or Agriculture Department, and not others— that arguably actually do have a strong connection, such as ICE? I would defer to the experts at OPM and the executive order on that, but what I can tell you is really related to IT employees who do deal with national securities. Our systems get hacked daily, and those are some of our most important employees there, and there is a national security exception in the law, and that's what that executive order directed us to do.

So that is a law that Congress passed that had that exception for national security.. And OPM in this administration has looked at it and said it applies to—. I think you'll commit then that the Department of Labor under your leadership will not seek to characterize itself as a national security agency for the purpose of limiting collective bargaining agreements. There are some components of the Department of Labor that deal with national security. They'll be happy to brief you on privately.

Thank you. Thank you. I shall defer to Senator Murkowski. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Mr. Sonderling, welcome. Appreciated our conversation. I'm pretty sure that in our discussion I invited you to come to Alaska to better understand some of the challenges that we face with being a highly, highly rural state. I'm pretty sure that you committed to me, but I'm going to give you an opportunity in the open record to affirm just that. You can talk to my staff.

I've been to Alaska 3 times and I want to go again. We want you back again. The slime and the fishing and the salmon season, and I want to do it, and we will do it. And if I can come, I will come in the winter. Let's do it in February or January.

So you really want her vote desperately. We'll think about, we'll think about the best timing on this. And, and, and really for us, it doesn't make a difference the time of year because at whatever the time is, there will be a seasonal aspect to our work workforce. Right now, the height of the summer, the fish are running, and our challenge is the seafood processing workforce. We've had an opportunity to talk about the H-2Bs and why it is so important not only to be able to receive those, but to receive those in a timely manner and to hopefully— my ask to you today is to work with us to get Alaska seafood workers or seafood workers exempted from this process so that we don't have to go through this scramble every year wondering if our workforce is going to be able to meet the salmon runs.

So this is a bipartisan issue that you hear not only from Alaska, but from Louisiana chairman with the crawfish, and then up and down the coast from Maine all the way down to Florida. And, you know, these are critical industries for us. These are, you know, really products and seafood that need to go out very timely. And the workforce considerations of these is difficult because of the way the H-2B system is. But I can assure you that we're doing everything we can within the constraints from a customer service perspective.

We've created the Office of Immigration Policy, so we've moved the H programs to its own office for customer service. So that means people who need to use the H-2A or H-2B person program have people dedicated directly to them in its own independent agency, which we've asked Congress to make permanent. Number 2, on the H-2B specifically, as you know, the cap is determination every year, is a decision made by DHS with the consultation, but the cap was raised to the statutory maximum this year. But I really think that the biggest part for those seasonal industries is the changes we made for the lottery system, you know, for the first 2 tranches, the 30,000, 33,000, and 33,000. Instead of just that rush to have it filed at midnight and, you know, people lose through no fault of their own, breaking it down to time of need in 3 different groups.

So those who need workers for January seasons aren't applying the same time for May seasons in those tranches. So from our perspective, we're really doing everything we can because the worst thing that can happen is that you have these industries that want to have American products that people want, and for us not to be able to deliver on them because of that workforce shortage need, especially in rural areas too, and I know specifically to Alaska how challenging some of the locations are to get workers in there too, and how there's just communities that have relied on the same people for many time. It's very important that the Department of Labor, from a service provider, is being able to process those applications immediately and getting the workers on time, because it's processed late, it's over. Well, and it's also complicated, as you have noted, that you, you have to work with the Department of Homeland Security on this. And so, as I've shared with you, some years, uh, it's DOL that's the problem, some years it's DHS, it's the problem.

What we need is to have this alignment. What we need is to have a, a level of, of review where we're watching the whole picture. And to your point about the timing, uh, you're correct in that, that has helped us because we have a later season, so we don't need everybody else in the country to snap these up ahead of our season. So we've made some progress, but I just need to know that you've got your eye on the ball with this, working with us. And, uh, again, whether it's salmon season or whether it is the season where we're trying to entertain guests to come to our ski resorts or our workers up on the North Slope when it's exploration time and working out in a really tough environment.

We need to have good support within the Department of Labor. And to that, I wanted to just ask a question many have asked about apprenticeship programs. And I think you can hear from this committee how we feel about the support in providing appropriate training for those in these apprenticeship programs. So I want to hear your commitment to maintaining the current national registered apprenticeship program. Absolutely.

It's not only my commitment, it's the President's commitment in the executive order. It's one he issued within his first 100 days, so it shows you the seriousness and the impact of this. We're just trying to make it better. We're approving new And this is where I want to make my specific ask for you. As you say, we want to make it even better.

As you know and you've pointed out, we have serious challenges in rural areas. You've got these communities, 82% are not connected by road. There— it's not only access for the workers, but they're limited then in terms of their traditional workforce training venues. So being creative with us as to how we tap into that for apprenticeship is where I would like. And working with the state workforce and the state education systems locally is a very important part of that too.

Good. Let's work together. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Murkowski.

I now defer to Senator Banks. Oh, isn't it your birthday? Happy birthday. You must like me to come here on your birthday. Embarrass me on my birthday.

Mr. Sonderling, great to see you. We appreciate your microphone. Excuse me? Is your microphone on? It is on.

Got it. Can you hear me now? Mr. Sonderling, thank you for your leadership. You've done a great job in your current role. You're going to be a great secretary.

But can you talk for a minute about illegal immigration? It's illegal to hire illegals, yet tens of millions of illegals still find jobs in America. What can the Department of Labor do to work better with ICE to prevent businesses from hiring illegals and to fulfill the mission of ICE? You know, when you hire illegal workers, you're undercutting businesses that are doing the right thing, and you're undercutting businesses that comply with the law and are complying for safe and work— safe and workplace conditions that pay properly. Because also, too, with whether it's illegals or human trafficking, you see that they're not— they don't have safe work conditions and they're not paid properly as well.

So it continues continues to undercut the market. So from the Department of Labor's perspective, from the, the agencies that can go after this, it's really holding those employers accountable through the Wage and Hour Division to make sure that there's no human trafficking, that there's no illegal workers being underpaid, which raises compliance because it disincentivizes those workers to come— those employers, those bad actors, to hire illegal labor if they have to do the same exact requirements as if you hire American workers, which is the law, but also working very closely with ICE to make sure that all the laws are enforced, that if we are in places and that we do see illegal labor, that we are working with all of our law enforcement partners at DHS, at the Department of Justice, because it is a crime. And the other thing is that those jobs should be going to American workers, and we need to continue disincentivizing employers saying we had to use these illegal labor because we didn't have skilled and qualified workers, local workers. And that's what we're really trying to do with a lot of the programs that have been discussed. Can you describe the formal relationship between ICE and the Department of Labor?

So the Department of Labor and ICE obviously were partners with the Department of Homeland Security, but there was MOUs that were put in place during the Obama administration. They were called deconfliction agreements that if the Department of Labor was there first, then ICE would not be able to get into that workplace. So clearly that employer was violating the law, and Department of Homeland Security was precluded by memorandum to not be able to enter there if Wage and Hour, OSHA, was there. That has been withdrawn. This administration is the administration of law and order, and we believe that these laws should be applied equally.

So that, that doesn't mean the Department of Labor doesn't have a role in there to clean up that employer.. But that doesn't mean ICE and DHS should be precluded from going in there too. So it's working together, opposed to saying one agency's laws are more important than the other. And that's what we've changed in this administration. And ultimately, it's going to benefit the American worker because American workers will get those jobs.

I've, I've worked, um, on this committee to end the Optional Practical Training program, or OPT, which gives corporations a subsidy for hiring foreign students in tech jobs. This program prevents young Americans from getting jobs, and Congress never authorized it. Do you have any plans to work with DHS to crack down on an unlawful program like OPT? We're working with all of our partners in the administration— DHS, DOJ— on these issues. The program you're talking about allows students on J-1 visa to, you know, have work experience experience under the OPT program, which could be up to 36 months.

There are benefits for employers like not having to pay some of the taxes as well, and then eventually allows those, those students to transfer to an H-1B visa all through our PERM process, all the way through an EB-2 or EB-3 visa, and eventually get citizenship or green card. So, you know, we're looking at all these programs and we're looking to see that there's such— with 900,000 new private sector jobs The president promised that those jobs would be for the forgotten men and women of America and all Americans to have that opportunity to get those jobs. So that's our first and foremost consideration when we look at any of these programs. Are they not only being lawfully used, um, but how are we going to make sure that employers don't need those programs because there's so many great American workers? And that's what we're trying to get to with all programs.

But the OPT is a Department of Homeland Security program. Um, but there are labor-adjacent issues. Understood. On that point, tech companies claim that we need highly skilled immigration to fix worker shortages, but as many as half of recent computer science graduates in America are unemployed today. Is there really a shortage, or do some businesses just prefer cheap labor?

Um, the program under the H-1B program the Department of Labor enforces, we're making sure that within our statutory regulatory control that if you're going to use that program, it's actually necessary and needed. And they're, um, not only are there not qualified American workers, but also if you're bringing in that foreign labor, it has to be paid appropriately. So you can't undercut because that harms the people coming in. It harms the program as well. So we have a lot of rules and regulations to make that program, uh, if you're going to use it, you're gonna have to pay for it, or else you can actually see what the cost was and then see how much it is to hire and train an American worker.

And that analysis wasn't done by before because the program wage rates became too low, and that's what we're fixing, and hopefully it'll help reform that program. I yield back. Happy birthday. Yeah, happy birthday, Senator Banks. Uh, Senator Kim.

Happy birthday. Uh, Mr. Sonderling, thanks for coming before this committee. I wanted to just circle up with you on a question I raised with you in a previous nomination hearing about OSHA. I raised concerns with you about numerous attempts to decrease OSHA's budget, and you had indicated you would review all the budgets within the DOL and ensure that they had appropriate resources.

Despite that promise, the past two presidential budgets have included decreases to OSHA's budget on top of also decreasing the workforce. Given this information, how are you squaring decreasing OSHA's budget and capacity with improving workplace Well, you know, a lot of this relates to efficiencies, and a lot of the historic budgets dealt with office and staffing levels that didn't exist anymore through attrition. So the president's budget related to OSHA allows a few things. One, to account for that, for, for the, um, the amount of workers that have left, office space have less, but also allows us to account for new technology as well. You know, at OSHA, there's a lot of AI and products that we're looking to invest in to make, um, our investigations more, um, efficient.

There's already an effect. What's that? Are those tools, AI tools and other products already in effect? We're working hard on that. The Mine Health Safety—.

The answer is no, they're not quite using it. But going back to OSHA, we were hiring and you asked me to look at, and I did, and we looked at our entire workforce and our OSHA and our Mine Health Safety Division needed additional workers. We were hiring, and I believe we've hired over 90 new OSHA inspectors. If you go on usajobs.gov right now, you can apply to be an inspector. It's a continual—.

I guess the way I, I would just—. We are replenishing that workforce. Uh, what I would just say is to think through what is it that you're trying to accomplish? What is the mission here? And in terms of being able to do that workplace safety, it's about making sure that they have an ability to inspect workplaces, to be able to check on safety.

The AFL-CIO did a report that said it would take OSHA 191 years to inspect every workplace once based on the 2025 data. You were seeing the challenges already from a shrinking workforce. And that was under your leadership that the number of years it would take has doubled. So, you know, I guess I just want to share that with you is just like, I get it, we're constrained, we don't have infinite money. But when we're looking at what it is we're trying to do, the goal should always be, you know, how can we make sure that we are responding to the workplace demands to be able to make sure we're addressing those needs?

One thing that I wanted to focus in, you and I have talked about AI workforce on a number of different places, but there's one in particular I wanted to just check with you on. Department of Labor has proposed the creation of an AI workforce hub. That's right. And in it, it says that it's going to hopefully more adequately track and respond to AI trends. All admirable.

But it also, the description talked about involving partnerships with private AI and and training vendors. I want to just ask you, can you commit to this committee for full public disclosure on any vendor or partner selected for this initiative? It will be on the website, and it's not just tech companies. As we discussed earlier, the entire ecosystem of who it's going to impact in AI are all, all workers, all businesses, all unions. So the partnership is not going to just be with tech companies.

It's going to be with employers. It's going to be unions. It's going to be with nonprofits. Some of them who are in this room here today. So we're including everyone in this.

It's going to be completely public who's a part of this. But as we discussed, this is going to be the missing link to get that data that nobody has. And you and I have talked about how we share that goal. 100%. Because, you know, we need to know, you know, skate to where the puck is going.

You know, how it is that we're trying to address something that has clearly going to have seismic impact on our economy, already has. A lot of concerns. And we've, we've talked about how many young people in this country right now are very, very worried about the impact that this is going to have on their chance to be able to get a job after college. We have to be able to respond with urgency. And I think that transparency is necessary.

We know there's a lot of money, a lot of it involved, a lot of concerns on that front. The last thing I just want to ask you is that, you know, as someone who worked as a career a federal government worker before, a nonpolitical worker. Uh, I hear from people all throughout the interagency and look, there, there are real concerns at every department, including the Department of Labor about morale, about the status of, of jobs and whether or not the people there feel like they can still have a, the kind of career that they want without a toxic work environment. How are you going to try to restore trust with under your leadership at the Department of Labor? Department of Labor is for all workers, including federal workers, and they, especially the Department of Labor employees where I started my federal career as well.

I didn't start walking in as a cabinet secretary. I started walking in the halls with them and eating in the same cafeteria. So I think there is a level of trust that they know with me and that I'm committed to them. They are our workforce. The Department of Labor's workforce has worked hard.

I urge you, just in my final seconds here, I just say I urge you to prioritize that. That if you're confirmed. Thank you. There has been just a real concern about just this tiered system, this hierarchy caste system between the politicals and this and the careers, and I hope you are someone that can go in a different path. With that, I'll yield back.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator Kim. Um, good job today, Mr. Sunderland. Uh, you've done well. You've done it before, I gather.

Uh, so, um, a couple questions on my behalf. Last year I introduced the Unlocking Benefits for Independent Workers Act, providing a safe harbor for companies attempting to provide portable benefits to workers, ideally to grow access to healthcare, retirement accounts, and even vacation days for independent workers. So if passed, how do you see this legislation interacting with DOL's proposed independent contractor rule, and would it assist DOL with further rulemaking, uh, that, which theoretically would have the goal of empowering independent workers? Well, this is a very important issue and one that I commend your leadership on. We've been talking about this issue for many years, and the issue right now is that you have gig economy workers, you know, working for platform companies that everyone knows the names of, and, uh, you know, they love that arrangement, but they also want some benefits.

And you see these companies too who want to provide those benefits to employees, whether it's contributions to 401, whether it's contributions to healthcare, or other benefits such as discounts related to them being able to negotiate in bulk for cars, for equipment and tools, and that's really been prohibited. What you've seen in that is because of the Department of Labor's regulations, neither side want to create the employment relationship. The gig workers want to stay as independent contractors,, and those operators want to keep them as independent contractors. So you have both sides in agreeance that we like this business model, but I want to give you benefits and I want to receive benefits, but that's going to ruin that business model due to the Department of Labor's regulation. So what you've seen in the absence of that, states, Democrat states, Republican states coming together and say, we want our citizens to be able to get this.

So we're going to do innovative laws. You know, we've seen it in states across the country that say under state law, state law, you can give these benefits, you know, and you can work for 5 different companies and you get little pieces of it from each company and everyone's happy. But under federal law, there's still a fear that that may create the employment relationship and ruin these programs and lead to significant litigation or worse, Department of Labor investigations. So this is a very key part of the puzzle to get those workers. Let me be clear.

Once I was picked up at the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans by a man who had been working as a Lyft or Uber driver in the Bay Area, California, but decided he'd rather live in New Orleans. Clearly a very smart man. And so, you know, he moved back and he just had to tell Uber or Lyft, "Hey, I'm moving to New Orleans." My son-in-law was driving, he was in Louisiana, and he and my daughter moved to Miami. "Hey, I'm moving to Miami." He could continue to drive. So it seemed like a federal law is needed because even though the states are doing this, what may be allowed in Tennessee would not necessarily be allowed in California.

Correct. And also too, under the Department of Labor's regulations, you know, will that, will that be enough too, um, to, for the companies to actually buy in on this? And, and we could design rules, we can design regulations, but ultimately if they need that legislative certainty, that's something, you know, I defer to you on. But this is really, again, it's, it's a bipartisan issue. It's an issue that both, um, workers and companies agree on.

That, you know, they want benefits, they want to be able to build wealth. It's something the Trump administration is really pushing for people to be able to get retirement accounts. And just to be clear, if we arrange that there's an account that, okay, I work for 4 different— I'm a DoorDasher, I'm an Uber, and I'm a Lyft, and maybe I'm an Amazon guy, as Holly points out— that they're all paying into an account, mechanically this would I, the worker, would designate this is the account where I want my health benefits paid into. Correct. You'd be creating an account wherein you can work for a lot of different platforms.

You own the account, and then other platform companies can give little pieces of the amount of time that you're in there too. So that's the model we're seeing around the country. That's the model that platform companies have come to me saying, we have these resources, we want to provide these resources. Our people want these resources, and that's how essentially it would work. Under some of your proposals, it would be blessed under federal law and would not create the employment relationship under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Let me ask you this, changing the topic. The Department of Labor oversees the Employee Benefits Security Administration, or EPSA, which obviously has a critical role in overseeing employer-sponsored insurance under ERISA. Congress passed my PBM oversight and transparency legislation, and you, DOL, is writing a new rule in this space. Now, clearly we need to afford healthcare, address healthcare affordability. The president is making the affordability of pharmaceuticals a major priority.

Kind of tell us, if you will, what DOL is doing in this space. Well, this is for, for PBMs, the Department of Labor is the regulator there when it comes to employee health care plans. And this is going to be the most transparent rule, you know, in the history of this industry. We're requiring PBMs to, for the first time, to really disclose what that spread pricing is, what those manufacturer rebates are, what the administration— administrative fees are. Not to regulate health care.

That is not— that is for this committee and HHS. But to give that transparency for better negotiations when those health care plans come up and be able to say now for the first time, because of the Department of Labor's rule, we know what the spread pricing is. We know it. I know Congress is fixing some of this. We know what all the rebates you're getting.

We can actually see, you know, how much, you know, our employees are having to pay and we're going to have to pay for that, those drug prices. And that allows them to better negotiate. And that's all we can do at the Department of Labor is give that transparency for the fiduciaries at the company who are negotiating this on the best behalf of their employer. They've never been armed with information about what they're paying on these formulary lists, and now for the first time they're going to have that information, which will lower healthcare costs and allow providers to provide that medication at a much fairer price. When do you think that rule will come out?

It is— we are working very hard on it. Obviously, the CAA, you know, the amendments came out either like a day or two before the rule proposal went out. So we have to adjust some of that of now what Congress is saying related to some of the unlawful pricing schemes or rebate schemes. So we are building that into the rule, but it is a priority because it's going to save— there's stats— billions and billions of dollars for healthcare plans, which is going to drive down the cost of healthcare plans. It's going to allow employers of all sizes to provide healthcare plans they weren't able to because there were so much in the middle that were being made for profit that is potentially going to go away.

But again, the pricing is on them— HHS, CMS. All the Department of Labor can do is transparency, and that's our commitment to you in this final rule in all of our programs. Sounds great. I share your optimism about the rule, and I consider that a tremendous achievement of this committee and a personal achievement. I wish to enter statements into the record of over 80 organizations in support of Mr. Sondolene, and that is agreed to without objection.

For any senator wishing to ask additional questions, those for the record will be due at 5 PM Friday, July 17th. Thank you again, sir, for being here. The committee stands adjourned, and taking the chairman's prerogative, go Tigers!