Chairman Bilirakis' Opening Statement at CMT Hearing on American Leadership in Manufacturing

So good morning everyone and welcome to the first committee, uh, the commerce manufacturing and trade subcommittee hearing of the 119th Congress. I'd like to express my sincere congratulations to my good friend, the chair, Mr. Guthrie, uh, on his appointment to the powerful energy and Commerce Committee, the oldest standing legislative committee in the House. I don't care what ways and means says. And, and the best darn committee. In Congress, by far. I also wanted to thank the chair for putting his faith in me to lead this important subcommittee, which has broad jurisdiction over a great many important matters. This will be a busy Congress, and I'm excited to lay the groundwork to accomplish a robust legislative agenda. I, I would be remiss if I didn't identify and welcome to this wonderful panel, the new members of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Mr. Bent from Oregon. Miss Miss Halton from Indiana, we'll be working on COSA together. uh, Mr. Fry from South Carolina, Miss Lee from the great state of Florida. It was a great friend of mine and Go Gators, uh, and Mr. King from New Jersey. Mr. Evans from Colorado and Mr. Goldman from Texas. Welcome, welcome. I also want to thank my very good friend, uh, Russ Fulter from the great state of Idaho, he'll be serving as my vice chair. He's going to do an outstanding job, so it's either Gus or Ross. That's what he says. So, and finally, it is good to be sitting next to my good friend, Ms. Schakowski from Illinois. I'm greatly looking forward to working with you again and all the members on this particular subcommittee. Now on to the business at hand. I'm excited to kick this Congress off with an educational hearing examining the state of American manufacturing and how it can be revolutionized with the use of artificial intelligence. We know generative AI is currently dominating the headlines for its specific use case of AI, such as how deep seek is capturing warranted attention with their collection. of Americans personal data, and subsequently sharing it with the Chinese Communist Party. But I think we must remember that generative AI and of course, uh, you know, has some, some positive aspects. There's no question. But generative AI is only specific use case of this technology and AI's applications are much broader than what has claimed the spotlight recently. We have seen how AI applied the vehicles to vehicles is paving the way for the next generation of vehicles that will drive themselves. I tell you what, it's very, very exciting, particularly with uh someone with disabilities such as myself. These autonomous vehicles promised to greatly improve auto safety, which is the most important thing and provide vast mobility benefits to every American. Including those with disabilities. We have also seen how the technology holds the power to completely revolutionize American manufacturing and bolster our supply chain. By integrating AI and machine learning and to supply chain systems, we can better predict constraints, and find potential weak points, which can be used to prevent shocks that disrupt entire industries. Our committee is led on supply chain mapping and monitoring legislation before an empowering companies to deploy emerging technologies like AI to better understand our supply chain. It, it could help us protect against the next pandemic or the next major labor shortage, and that's huge. We need to send that uh legislation, and I know Representative Bouchon and uh Doctor Buchon had it, uh, last session, but he's uh He's no longer on the committee, unfortunately, but he'll be helping us. Uh, but, uh, anyway, we ought to send it to the president's desk as soon as possible so we can begin work, uh, on the, on making America resilient. Industries can also utilize the power of AI in our manufacturing ecosystems to fund, to find where redundancies exist and reduce waste in the developmental pipeline to bring this country back to the forefront of what made it great. We need to reduce unnecessary waste and optimize our building capabilities. We know the American people are the most innovative in the world. Our job here in Congress will be to provide a pathway for these innovators to succeed. This is exciting stuff, folks. America's global leadership in the 21st century will be contingent on our ability to promote emerging technologies and establishing a pathway to unleash them throughout American manufacturing. We have a great panel of witnesses today to share examples of how AI is actively being used in manufacturing and supply chains. I want to thank them for being here today, particularly with this bad weather. Thanks for coming in. I think uh the chairman did a great job uh in giving us an extra hour to get here, so we appreciate that very much. I didn't run Greek time today because I had to, I had that extra hour. So in any case, I, I yield back and I'm going before I yield back though, I want to recognize my good friend, the ranking member, Miss Schakowski for 5 minutes for her opening statement.