As long as it is solid, the carbon is there. It is the best carbon storage mechanism that we know of.

No, and I challenge anybody in the room or outside the room to tell me a better way to get the existing carbon that is in the atmosphere at 411 parts per million, to get that out of the atmosphere.

Not hardly. I consider planting trees and taking care and being good stewards of the forests that we have sound environmental stewardship.

Despite public misconception, the United States leads the world in reducing emissions while we are growing our economy.

My legislation represents a pragmatic, science-based first step in addressing global carbon emissions, emphasizing natural carbon sequestration through reforestation, forest management, and sustainable utilization.

I am sure this is going to be a fascinating--another series of ongoing hearings, first on climate change.

Mr. Westerman has a bill that actually is a common-sense solution that you can solve carbon, either by limiting how much goes into the air, or trying to pull it out of the air.

Much of the legislation that we want to see passed this year has been held up because of this insistent threat that we have to fully fund LWCF.

This policy will result in reduced carbon emissions.

When you show us your budget, you show us your values.

So we are just paying the interest on the debt. All the while, the debt continues to go higher and higher.

All of that money that goes into net interest on the debt... serves to crowd out other funding that might otherwise be available.

the biggest threat to all of these priorities, and to the long-term security of our nation, is our out-of-control mandatory spending.

I applaud the President for actually doing a budget.

But I just want to be clear that this Committee did produce a budget in that year.

It is time to make tough choices, that even programs that have been around a long time, it is time to figure out, in an era of $23 trillion national debt where do we make tradeoffs?

Allow the chairman of the committee or the chair of the Committee on the Budget to request CBO prepare a preliminary report, including estimated budgetary authority on legislation to be considered in committee.

About 65 analysts are devoted to producing cost estimates after full committee markup, but producing estimates on the routine basis before markup would eliminate some of the work that now occurs afterward.