Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for calling this hearing to consider a number of nominations this morning. I want to particularly thank you on behalf of Bill Apgar, the nominee to be Assistant Secretary for Housing and the Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Mr. Apgar is renowned for the breadth and depth of his knowledge in the area of housing. As the author of numerous books and dozens of papers and articles on housing and housing economics, Bill Apgar is one of the most highly respected experts anywhere in the country. I am extremely pleased that he has agreed to serve at the Department.

Prior to coming to HUD, Mr. Apgar served as a professor both at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Design where he taught housing and urban policy. In addition, he was Executive Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, widely recognized as the premier housing research center in the country. Moreover, the Joint Center, under Bill's direction, was active in bringing together diverse groups and organizations to address important housing policy questions. This ability to find common ground and move policy forward on the basis of constructive debate will serve him in extremely good stead at HUD.

In addition, Mr. Apgar has been the chief author of a series of reports called "The State of the Nation's Housing." This report, done on an annual basis, is a great source of data on housing to policymakers here on Capitol Hill and throughout government at all levels. It is just one of the reasons that he is uniquely qualified for this job.

Most importantly, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Apgar is a long-time resident of Newton, MA. His wife continues to serve in state government there, and one of his children goes to college in Massachusetts as well. My first question, Mr. Apgar, will be how you let your other son escape the Commonwealth to go to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

I also want to welcome the other nominees. In looking over their information, it appears to me that they are very well qualified and will bring important real-life experience to their jobs at the Department.

I hope the Committee can act quickly to report these nominees favorably to full Senate.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you.

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