Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and the witnesses.
I have to admit that I am always fascinated by the legal jargon that goes with international trade. As such, I'm going to go to each of you.
Professor Hughes, I read your article in The Hill. I wanted to hear from you on this subject. I'm going to ask you a couple of technical legal questions.
Previous witnesses have talked about how this would need to go through Congress. I understand that Congress would need to appropriate funds for the projects under buy American, but what you're essentially saying I think is that through the executive order, the law with respect to procurement—meaning how the United States would deal with local and state procurement—would not actually need to change. Congress would need to appropriate funds, but would not necessarily be changing, the rules. It would simply be a different application under the executive order of the existing rules that would apply more stringent safeguards, thereby allowing the central budget office to police what states and local governments are doing.
Is that essentially correct?