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DOGE committee hearing - DOGE gets blasted · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
• 0:04
  Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
• 0:07
  the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
• 0:11
  Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
• 0:15
  First, I yield to Ranking Member Stansbury for her opening
• 0:18
  statement. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
• 0:22
  Well, DOGE is back and there's going to be a lot to unpack in
• 0:25
  this hearing. But I think first and foremost,
• 0:28
  we want to acknowledge that the purpose of this subcommittee and
• 0:32
  why it was created in the 1st place by the majority was to
• 0:37
  root out waste, fraud and abuse. That's literally the mandate for
• 0:42
  the DOGE subcommittee, and I want to emphasize that we remain
• 0:46
  focused on that mission. In fact, we are working on a
• 0:49
  report on the waste, fraud and abuse that we're currently
• 0:51
  seeing in this administration. And I think it's important to
• 0:56
  also recognize that we are 14 days from a government shutdown.
• 1:00
  And so I'm troubled to see that the subcommittee, which is
• 1:04
  designed to address government spending, to streamline
• 1:07
  efficiency of government programs, has strayed so far
• 1:11
  from its mission, especially as there's such pressing matters
• 1:14
  facing our country, including a government shutdown.
• 1:18
  The passage of the big ugly bill, which not only drove the
• 1:22
  federal deficit by $4 trillion, but is kicking millions of
• 1:26
  Americans off their healthcare and about to make their
• 1:28
  healthcare premiums go up, tariffs that are causing
• 1:31
  inflation to go up and putting small family businesses out of
• 1:35
  business And administration that's flouting the rule of law
• 1:38
  every day. And a total lack of transparency
• 1:41
  in the Epstein case is the administration has still refused
• 1:45
  to comply with the subpoena that this committee issued.
• 1:50
  So there's a lot of important things that this committee could
• 1:53
  tackle. And I would think that a topic
• 1:57
  involving environmental science would be more well suited to a
• 2:00
  committee that actually deals with science or environmental
• 2:02
  issues. But I am happy to talk about
• 2:05
  climate change and weather modification.
• 2:07
  It's a topic that I've spent many years in my career working
• 2:10
  on. In fact, I worked more than 20
• 2:12
  years as a water resources manager working on drought and
• 2:15
  water planning issues in the state of New Mexico.
• 2:18
  So and I know how important addressing drought and water
• 2:22
  issues is for our farmers and ranchers out there and
• 2:25
  personally and professionally, there's a lot to discuss with
• 2:28
  respect to weather modification and so.
• 2:32
  We're going to talk about it. Let's talk.
• 2:34
  About it. Certainly there's a lot of DOGE
• 2:36
  related topics we could talk about with respect to climate
• 2:39
  change and weather programs, including the dismantling of
• 2:42
  climate, natural resources and emergency response programs, the
• 2:46
  firing of federal officials, dismantling of EPA, the illegal
• 2:51
  freezing of federal funding, removal of the US from
• 2:54
  international climate agreements, dismantling clean
• 2:56
  energy programs, catastrophic response to natural disasters,
• 3:00
  including what we saw in Texas. And all of these topics would be
• 3:04
  ripe for an oversight hearing. So I hope that we can use this
• 3:09
  hearing to discuss some of those issues.
• 3:11
  But with respect specifically to weather modification, whether
• 3:15
  it's cloud seeding or other technologies, I actually agree
• 3:18
  with many of the assertions about the need for further
• 3:22
  discussion for their science and potentially further regulation
• 3:27
  of these particular technologies.
• 3:30
  But it's important that we distinguish between fact and
• 3:33
  fiction, between clickbait and real solutions.
• 3:36
  So let's talk about some facts. Weather modification and cloud
• 3:39
  seeding, as was mentioned, it's a real thing.
• 3:41
  It exists. It has been practice in varying
• 3:44
  forms since the 1940s. Increasingly, folks are looking
• 3:47
  at this as a opportunity to increase rain and precipitation.
• 3:52
  But the science is still out on many of these technologies, and
• 3:55
  we absolutely need to understand what are the implications for
• 3:59
  air quality, for precipitation, and the implications also for
• 4:03
  water rights in the West, because this could have far
• 4:06
  reaching implications. But it's also important to
• 4:08
  understand that many of these technologies are in the R&D
• 4:13
  phase. They're in limited use in the
• 4:15
  number of states. And it's not actually
• 4:17
  technologies that the federal government even widely supports.
• 4:20
  This is largely in the private sector.
• 4:22
  So in the world of science, it is widely acknowledged that more
• 4:26
  science is needed to understand use, efficacy and impacts of
• 4:29
  these technologies. So those are the facts.
• 4:32
  Those are the facts. But it's hard to understand why
• 4:35
  we're discussing banning these practices outright in this
• 4:39
  committee when the oversight committee in another
• 4:42
  subcommittee, literally as we're sitting here right now, is
• 4:46
  having a hearing about dismantling the Environmental
• 4:48
  Protection Agency. And the actual bill under
• 4:51
  discussion in this committee is trying to use the EPA to
• 4:56
  regulate these particular practices.
• 4:59
  So the inconsistency and governance is very, very
• 5:03
  confusing here. But there's a more insidious
• 5:05
  issue here, which I think we've already heard and some of the
• 5:08
  comments, which is the using. Of the.
• 5:10
  Platform of Congress to proffer anti science theories to
• 5:14
  platform climate denialism and to ultimately put our
• 5:19
  communities at risk by continuing to put out
• 5:23
  disinformation. So I'm grateful that we're
• 5:26
  joined today by Doctor McCracken, who has spent his
• 5:29
  career very distinguishedly at the national labs helping to
• 5:34
  bring together scientists globally and across the United
• 5:38
  States to understand climate change, its impacts and to help
• 5:41
  our communities really understand what is real here in
• 5:44
  terms of the science. And we hope to dig in to
• 5:48
  understand what we can do to help address drought, fire and
• 5:51
  flooding and how it's impacting our communities.
• 5:54
  So with that, I yield back and I think the gentlelady, hey, thank
• 5:58
  you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 6:01
  support. If you could take a second and
• 6:02
  hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
• 6:05
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• 6:08
  appreciate it. It helps out the show
• 6:10
  tremendously and you'll never miss an episode.
• 6:13
  And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
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• 6:19
  support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and
• 6:25
  please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
• 6:27
  tomorrow.