 Well thank you all very much for coming. Today Senator Welch and Congresswoman Ballant and I are very pleased to announce over $74 million in congressional designating spending for Vermont as part of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process. More grant awards will be announced in the coming weeks as past as there are some of the major appropriations bills has not yet been completed so this is a partial announcement. What I like about the earmark process which is what this is is this is not top-down federal spending to the local communities. This is grassroots spending where people in communities all over the state come forward and they say look these are our needs how can you help them we go through a lengthy process to do just that and we have heard from probably between all of us hundreds of different organizations throughout the state. The funding we are announcing today will address some of the most important needs in every corner of our state it will address our health care crisis it will expand senior centers and meal sites it will help build community centers fire stations and improve water safety. The legislation will also begin to address the very serious housing crisis that exists in virtually every part of our state and among other projects that we've worked on the funding will help the Memorial Housing Partnership to renovate space at the Vermont State University at Johnson to create more than 20 units of affordable housing for older Vermonters as well as establish an on-site health clinic this funding will help build affordable housing in Newport St. Albans Arlington Woodstock Washington County and elsewhere it will also put money in the mobile home parks to help them improve their water situation there's also funding for the Washington Electric Co-op to move more aggressively to sustainable energy and solar energy there is a money in this list for improving training for law enforcement officers and also to help deal with the recidivism rate which is much too high in Vermont and the country we are spending a lot of money keeping people in jail but we don't provide the resource of the needs so that when they get out of jail they become lower-abiding citizens there is a project in here for the town of Rochester they're going to receive 2.3 million to turn their vacant high school into a community center and that's a project that is going to give new life to the old high school by creating a true community space putting a child care adult day center town offices and local businesses all on the one roof but let me reiterate the money that we're announcing today is not the complete amount of money more money will be coming in and and some of the projects that I have worked on and Peter will talk about what he has done and some of the yet to be announced projects is seven million dollars for more federally qualified community health centers Dr. Ian Winooski, Marisville and Richard and this funding will provide more access for not only primary health care but for dental care as well Senator Welch and I work together to bring in two million dollars for Southwestern Vermont Medical Center to launch a primary care physician training program I think everybody knows we have a major crisis in primary health care in Vermont throughout the country among other things we don't have enough primary care doctors so Peter and I are working to see that we improve that and there are many other projects as well but with that let me introduce Senator Welch she and I have worked hard on these projects Peter yeah thanks Bernie I just want to reiterate something that Bernie said this congressionally directed spending this is Vermont taxpayer dollars coming back to Vermont and the decisions about how these are allocated is as Bernie said totally bottom up its local community leaders identifying what is a real need in their community and then having to go through a very rigorous process for it to be considered and evaluated and pass through the committee process and then get approved on the floor on the floor these are all public purpose efforts that are helping our communities improve themselves and a major point about this is who better than the people in the communities whether it's Rutland or Burlington or Bennington to make judgments about what they really need the second thing is that it's really tough on our property taxpayers right now here in Vermont it's tough school budgets are going up and to the extent that we can help Bernie back and I by bringing some resources back to communities to do projects that are really essential we think that is really really important the projects you've got the list of them so I won't go all through them but housing is a major issue Champlain housing trust is getting five million dollars to help them in their work uh Mount Anthony down in Bennington is getting money that'll help with 63 apartment units also some medical facility and as Bernie mentioned then also some retail so it's about building up the community there's infrastructure projects that are really important to towns like Waterbury like Berlin like Johnson uh that are going to be funded and really make a difference in the communities being able to have the infrastructure they need in a resilient one at that one of the things that is small compared to other some of the projects that get considered is the Vermont Woodlands Association and that organization helps landowners figure out and implement plans to preserve our forest and that is so so important always but especially with what's happening with climate change the historical tradition that we have here in Vermont a respect for the legacy we fund some historic projects like the one in Stratford where the town offices are located in the building that was donated to Stratford by Justin Morrill who was a senator for I think 30 years and in the house of representatives and is responsible for the land grant college act and also played a major role in the transcontinental railroad and this grant is going to help that town preserve that building that was given to the town well over 100 years ago by an illustrious senator Justin Morrill so we feel very good about how the efforts that Vermonters made to make application to identify projects that make a difference in their communities and then have that stand rigorous process through the through the congress now they're going to start being able to do the work that the resources from these congressional directive spending grants will provide and Bernie and Becca and I try to work very closely on these so that we're complimenting rather than overlapping because the goal that we have as a delegation is to do the absolute maximum that we can to benefit as many Vermonters and Vermont communities as we can thank you. Thanks Peter. David sure is the state directive for congresswoman Bellin. Thank you senator. Unfortunately congresswoman Bellin was not able to be here in person today but she did want me to read this statement on her behalf. I'm sorry I'm not able to be with you here today but I'm so excited to join our senators to announce these community project funding projects for Vermont. This funding process is an opportunity for Vermont's elected representatives to make sure federal funding is directed toward helping our communities in places where I can have the greatest impact. I'm thrilled to have secured millions to invest directly in our communities across Vermont. The projects my office advanced span the length and breadth of the state from Bennington in Townsend in the south all the way up to North Hero and Canaan in the north. These investments will spur 15 different projects generating jobs and strengthening our community resources. They will address some of Vermont's most pressing issues. Housing, the infrastructure needed to support housing, rural health care, climate resiliency, technological innovation and education. I look forward to seeing these federal dollars put to work for Vermont families. I was proud to be able to advance a full roster of 15 projects through the house appropriations process and ultimately the full appropriations process, the maximum number members of the house were permitted to put forward. And I can provide, I won't go through the list of projects right now but I can certainly provide that list of projects for you after this. Finally, I want to thank Senator Sanders and Senator Welch. Their long-term leadership and their close working relationship with my office through this process has been invaluable and I am grateful for their partnership. Thank you. Okay, any questions on congressional directed spending? Senator, as you know, they were banned for some time and now they're back because of the work of Senator Leahy. Well, not just Senator Leahy. I think all of us felt very strongly about this and it's a good question. The argument against them was people were saying, well, you only got big deficit. Why are you spending more money? The answer is, we're not spending more money. What this funding is about is coming from the budgets of each agency already. It's not more spending. It's taking a tiny fraction, I think less than one percent of the total spending. And as Senator Welch mentioned, to my mind, I would go, I would go further. This is a very important approach because what it does, rather than having the federal government determine what Manuski or Burlington or Bennington needs, we're hearing from the people themselves. What are their priorities? And so for a relatively small amount of money, we're addressing real community needs. So this is something I have always believed in and not only did I support bringing back these earmocks, I would go a lot further than is currently the case. What kind of guardrails are there to prevent corruption? I know that's been one of the... Well, there are a lot. There are a lot. In other words, what you certainly don't want is somebody to come up with some program that's going to benefit some powerful special interest. So there is a lot of transparency in this whole process. By the way, we have to put our names on these. Every project application to our office that we support, we put our name on. So you have the capacity to look at what that project is, who sponsored it, kick the tires, and come to your conclusions about the merits of that project. So the transparency that Bernie mentioned with our names on it means we have to stand behind the proposal that we're making. Other questions on... All right, I wonder if there are no other questions on... Just one other question. The 15 projects you mentioned from Congress and the Valence Office, those have already been signed into law by President Biden as far as the first Yeah, so I won't go into all the details. There's slightly different rules for the House and the Senate. The House projects had a narrower set of eligibility buckets, and because of that, it is my belief that all 15 on the House side have gone through the full appropriations process. I can check that for you to confirm, but I believe that's the case. Let me say a word on another subject, and I speak as the Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee. One of the focuses of the committee has been to lower the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs in this country, where we find Americans paying, in some cases, 10 times more for the same exact drugs sold in Canada or in Europe. It's an issue we spent a lot of time on. And one of the particular areas that we've looked at is the very, very high cost of asthma inhalers. Asthma is a very serious problem impacting tens of millions of Americans, many, many thousands of remunners. And sometimes people are paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for the inhalers, and they're often sold abroad for 10% of that cost. In the last six weeks, my committee has produced an investigation documenting the very high prices that Americans are paying compared to what people are paying abroad. And I have in the last three or four weeks spoken to the CEOs of every major prescription drug company that manufactures these inhalers. A few weeks ago, Berenjo, Ingelheim, a German company, one of the major manufacturers, announced that they were lowering their prices in America to capping their prices at $35, a major, major reduction in price. And just this morning, I talked early this morning to the CEO of AstraZeneca, which is one of the largest drug companies in the world, and they followed suit. They would also announce that they will be lowering their prices to $35. I think later in the week, I will be speaking to the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. We don't know what they'll be doing, but I expect they will be also substantially lowering their prices. And there's another company out there called TAVA, and we'll be speaking to them as well. So at a time when so many people in Vermont are struggling with the high cost of prescription drugs, we have some good news, and I'm proud that we're able to go forward and lower the cost of these asthma and CPDOD inhalers. Any questions on that? Okay, great. All right, well, thank you all very much. Thank you. Appreciate you being here.