During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) questioned Paul Dabbar, nominee to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce, about funding for the National Science Foundation.
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00:00Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was up till 1 a.m. watching the Timberwolves beat the L.A. Lakers, just for the record.
00:07Kind of a surprise in that series. We're very excited.
00:10The Cavs are ready for you.
00:12Okay, great. So I appreciate your background very much and your commitment to science and economic opportunity.
00:20I view this being from a state with 15 Fortune 500 companies, fourth for ag exports, Mayo Clinic, a big medical device present,
00:31that we are literally on this cusp of economic expansion, or we're on it, I should say,
00:38with everything from mapping of the human genome to the work that's been done on AI.
00:46I'm going to ask about this, put some rules in place.
00:48But I am concerned, and my colleagues have asked you about this, just about these tariffs setting us backwards with the rest of the world.
00:54I cannot tell you how concerned I am about this because not everyone, you know, Tim Cook can get into the White House,
01:00but my little company down that makes high chair stuff, a busy baby, she can't get in there,
01:06and she can't get at the investment meetings, doesn't know which tariffs are going to change, what's going to happen.
01:12And so I just hope you'll be a voice on that front.
01:14So first question, I have National Science Foundation grants, and the administration has cut off hundreds of these grants,
01:23including at the University of Minnesota.
01:26And I just, this scientific research going on again, very exciting.
01:30Will you commit to funding the NSF, and will you commit to restoring funding for the NSF grants?
01:36So commerce doesn't fund NSF.
01:42I'm reasonably familiar because when I was undersecretary, and we also do work with NSF at South Pole and elsewhere.
01:49And so certainly NSF is a very important aspect to funding research, but I don't have that scope.
01:56Will you be an advocate for it was probably the better words.
01:59I will certainly be supporting S&T investment, and I think, as you know, Senator, when the sequester was lifted last time,
02:09the president signed the quantum bill, the AI bill, and so on.
02:13And I was certainly a part of both supporting that and executing on that.
02:18Speaking of AI, the, you know, we've had a lot of bipartisan work over here, still haven't really passed.
02:25Senator Thune and I have a base bill for non-defense applications of AI.
02:30Talk about what your priorities would be for AI.
02:33I'm just concerned that we haven't put in place any guardrails, and that could actually set everyone back if we don't do that.
02:40So it's a long topic having Bill.
02:42Yeah, I don't, yeah, you can't fill it.
02:43Bill, yeah, I'll try to see it narrow, Senator.
02:45The opportunity set for AIs is so incredibly broad.
02:51I think it's very important to allow every medical device maker and every company out there to look at AI for operations
02:59and allow people to expand.
03:01I'm on the board of Dominion Energy, which is currently I'll be resigning if I'm so lucky to be confirmed,
03:07but using AI for utility operations, for dispatching power plants, storms.
03:12You could use this for weather, so getting to NOAA.
03:15Got it.
03:16There's a long list, and I want to try to facilitate all the different opportunities, including within the scope of commerce.
03:24Yes, and I just would hope that you would be an advocate, I can ask this more in writing,
03:28just for some rules of the road in place, because even the companies want this,
03:34and we can talk about it more back and forth or meet about it.
03:38Okay, rural exports, Senator Hoeven and I passed legislation on this.
03:43We, you know, we have the Foreign Commercial Service, but in a lot of areas, they don't have a,
03:47a big company might have, you know, full-time trade expert on a certain part of the world,
03:53and this Rural Export Center in Fargo assists rural small businesses to access international markets,
04:01and you may not be familiar with the details, but would you commit to supporting the work of the Commerce Department with rural exports?
04:09Yes, Senator.
04:10Okay, thank you.
04:11We talked about chips and science broadband program.
04:15Had a confirmation come through this committee on, on that.
04:19We, as you know, we allocated a lot of money, hasn't really gone out quite yet.
04:24We don't want to get back into that whole history, but we do have to get it out.
04:28And are you committed to getting that funding out to the states and to work?
04:35Yes, Senator.
04:36Okay, thank you very much.
04:37Appreciate it.