 said around, ah, Representative Jim Clyburn is joining us. Thank you, Mr. Clyburn, for being here today. We would love to have you say a few words if you'd be willing. And where's Willie? Did he, did you manage to get over here without Willie? Yeah. Oh, good. Great to see you today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. I don't usually time it as well to come in and go straight to the mic. But thank you so much for being here. And thank you so much, Daniel. I am assuming between you and Willie, I am here. Let me thank all of you. And of course, ESI for the tremendous work and tremendous cooperation that we've had over the last several years working in a bipartisan way to deliver common sense energy initiatives to most especially for me, rural communities. There's one program particularly I would like to highlight just for a moment. Several years ago, working with the co-ops, electric co-ops in my congressional district and around the state of South Carolina, I came upon a little program that the co-ops had initiated. The call Save My House, I believe, is what they called it. And that program was designed to assist many of the members of the co-op with various initiatives to save money on energy costs. Now, I'm a member of the electric co-op. I never paid much attention to why my bill was rounded up every month. All I knew was every month, there was always a round number. And upon investigating, because I had not always been a member of the co-op, I found out that they had this roundup program. And if your bill came in at God forbid you would ever get a bill this low, $29.25, then it would be $30. And the $0.75 would go into this pot. And it went to everybody. And from that pot, the members could draw money to retrofit their homes. In many instances, in my part of South Carolina rule, part of South Carolina, in many instances, those would be what we call trailer homes. They call them now, I believe, manufactured homes. Well, upon investigation, I thought that that's a good program. And maybe it ought to be exported. It ought to be South Carolina export. And so working with my co-op, we did come up with a program that we call Rule Energy Savings Program. I like to do things with rhythm. And so I kept trying to make it R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I couldn't quite get the full respect, the number. But we got the R-E-S-P, Rule Energy Savings Program. And it took us some time. But we finally got it into law and expanded that with millions of dollars. Now, it passed without money for a while. We do things like that way up here. You pass the program. You go out and tell everybody you've done something. And then it's well now, where is the money? So it took us some time. But we finally got the Congress to agree to fund the program with your help. And I want to thank you all so much for that. I don't remember. I keep telling people it took us six or seven years. I don't know, you know, us politicians, right? They embellished it a little bit. Remember, it might have been five years and a matter in eight. But it took us some time. But it's now up for reauthorization. And we're working very hard. I think the record has been of such that we are not going to have a difficult time getting the program reauthorized. And what I have found, I've visited some of these homes. And I've learned a lot about this when you can put these aprons, that's what they call them, on the ground, under these homes. Or you do other retrofitting in some instances that might need a new roof, sometimes need insulation. And what we found with our experience is that some people were paying $7 to $800 a month just on electricity. And upon retrofitting these homes, putting in the insulation, putting the apron on the ground underneath the home, and putting on a new roof, we found that you could save enough money to just on your electric bill to repay the loans that the co-ops will authorize to give out to their members. So we fund the program to fund the co-ops. Then the co-ops make the loans to their members. And the repayment of the loans. What we found, I remember one year later from Calhoun County, South Carolina, I would never forget her. Her bill was almost $900 a month. But she borrowed the money from the co-op, put in the insulation that was needed, other retrofitting, and her monthly bill, even with the loan repayment, was 2 thirds of what she was paying before, rather than $900 down, less than $600, including the repayment of the loan. This is the kind of program that you guys have been a part of making what I think a good contribution to rule. We started out with just the homes. The first time we went back, we now brought in the businesses. So people that own businesses in rural communities could also use the program. I'm very high on using innovations. I always say that we can be no more nor can we be in the less than what our experiences allow us to be. And I do think that programs like this come from experiences. If I had not been out there among these citizens, I would not have been able to really steal from the co-ops this idea, turn it into a national program, and make it what it is today. And I want to thank you all for that. And there are other kinds of programs out there waiting for you to be innovative and to do what is necessary to improve the lives of people in this great country of ours. I always say that this country is in no need of being made great. It is great. What we've got to do is figure out the ways and needs to make this country's greatness accessible and affordable for all of its citizens. That is what should be our objectives. And so when we reauthorize this program, we are going to try to expand it. You all have come up with some other ideas about how we can make this program more applicable to more people. And we are looking forward to doing that. So thank you so much for the work that you do. And thank you so much for allowing me to be here with you today. And I would hope that as we move forward together, we will do the things that are necessary to make the lives of these. Well, I call them, in many instances, young people living in rural communities. And the reason I focus on them is because I'm a great believer. President Biden said something in his speech the other day that has stuck with me, that anyone ought to be able to say where they are from and to stay where they are from. When I grew up, graduated college in South Carolina, 82% of my class, 82% of my college class left the state of South Carolina. This was 1961. What does that do? It increases the wealth gap in such a way it cannot be repaired. If all those who got college degrees with me, then it means that those rural communities from which they come, many of them, you ask them where they are from. They will say Charleston, but he talked to them long enough. They're from Watermelon Island, not wanting to say where they are from. And the moment they graduate college, believe not wanting to stay where they are from. These kinds of programs allow people to be proud to say where they are from and honor to stay where they are from. And I'll thank you all so much for this. Thank you, Mr. President. Great to see you today. Thank you. Thank you for coming by. Thanks for joining us today. It means a lot for you to make time out of your busy day. And thanks for your leadership on the Rural Energy Savings Act. It's a thrill to work with you in your office on that. And yeah, I mean, we're feeling good about it, too. Thank you, sir, for joining us today.