Thomas R. Carper: “I believe we have made significant progress.”

I would say there is a lesson here for both of us, and one of those is to make clear I am always ready to take your calls, your meeting, whatever you want and engage.

If I had known--as you know, the breadth of the issues that we cover in this Committee are enormous. It is impossible for any of us to fully master each of them.

Not really. I have just come from the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, which is having a hearing on the Key Bridge, the bridge in Baltimore that was badly damaged.

Public engagement can build trust, it can increase public buy-in, can help resolve issues, can help prevent litigation, and ultimately it can save time and money.