I am not sure that standard is necessarily accurate or something that we would agree with that you have outlined.

I am not going to take my eye off of this. And I stated that we are making some progress. But we have a long, long, long way to go.

I want to say that discussing the status of hurricane protection and critical coastal restoration underway in South Louisiana is of extreme importance.

Will you and the Chief Architect of GSA work with my office to ensure that the agency complies with the Stafford Act and follows its own policy on Gulf Coast reconstruction projects, by allowing locally-based Louisiana firms to participate…

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The coast is in a state of crisis, losing 25 to 35 square miles of wetlands per year.

We have got to change our direction.

We must build a better model. We must move in a new direction.

I want to keep this as convenient and as easy, informative, because taxpayers do have a right to know of every dollar we are investing in these programs, what is the return, and if we can't justify it, we are going to end the program.

let us look at the efficiency of the appropriations and what it is--how it is measuring across the board.

I think all of us understand that small business is the backbone of our economy.

we need somebody at a very high level advocating for small businesses, not only in trade negotiations

On Monday, I also introduced a bill, S. 1196, the Small Business International Trade Enhancement Act.

I want to thank Senator Landrieu and Senator Snowe for these important bills.

Trade and export promotion is really an important piece of this.

the bipartisan bill that Chair Landrieu and Senator Snowe introduced yesterday changes the authorization of the grant amounts from a maximum of $150,000 to a minimum of $150,000.

Has the Department finalized the design and cost estimate for the New Orleans VA Hospital?

I am looking at the amount of emissions, not by forestry, but just by agriculture and, according to the CRS report I am reading, in the last something years it has gone from 460 million metric tons of CO2 to 582.