Ben Nelson

Being able to bounce back from some sort of a lights-out situation is critically important.

I was very uncomfortable seeing that $400 million disappear, with the representations that we've made to be fully funded to carry out the program.

In the report, you're deferring the construction of the CMRR facility, which is a key tenet of the commitment to the Senate and Congress during the New START debate.

We have made conscious decisions to have a balanced program, and part of those decisions has been to accept a higher risk and to manage that risk.

You must feel like this: that we gave you $400 million less than you needed and now we're criticizing you for having $400 million less to deal with.

We're at a crisis. We're running out of money and we need to do this as a core function of government.

Dodd-Frank contained critical protections to ensure that non-financial end users who use futures contracts in a legitimate manner to hedge against higher prices would not be hampered by unnecessary regulations.

I think we all agree on the necessity of implementing Dodd-Frank, and as you have said, in a sound and reasonable time frame and in a sound and reasonable way to deal with reckless speculation.

We spend an awful lot of time talking about what programs we would like to have. Probably not nearly enough time on accountability.

We as a Nation would be greatly diminished without our space assets.

When is the right time to bring China, India, Pakistan, or others into discussions with respect to nuclear weapons?

I think there is concern that the administration is headed down a path to make unilateral reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons.