But why is that? I mean, why, why go through all--I mean, you go through so much work to evaluate these projects, and then it seems like it was for naught.

And I want to also just reemphasize the request for a greater stakeholder involvement in deciding which projects to fund.

I believe we are very close. And I think right now what we need to do is build trust with our operators so they understand what lasers can do.

So the Army is committed to pursuing directed energy.

Lasers have been promised for an awful long time, and they have never held up and delivered what was asked for.

In this President's budget we once again see an increase in the funding for charter schools.

the current releases from Folsom are due to flood control regulations that are badly outdated.

I am very concerned that the lesson that this government is teaching is that it does not care about the residential needs of users.

we cannot do that because of environmental regulations that are not only outdated, but, in many cases, have been found to be either defective or actually fraudulent.

Does that concern you at all, though, that the State is facing a payback agreement of nearly double what it was before?

You're compounding the problem by leaving these people vulnerable with the belief that they have some authorized project.

The reality is we're still not at that finish line.

I think some of the frustrations--incredible frustrations that we have are being verified in the budget process.

we have pretty strong frustrations in regard to the efficiency of the Corps of Engineers in regard to project delivery.

we have not accomplished the stated purpose of these laws, which was to improve the environment.

We simply cannot weaken fishery protections any more.

Mr. Bettner is present here today as a witness. We very much appreciate his help.

We ought to be fair and equitable for every region in California when we talk about the water tools that are available to solve those regional water needs for those areas.