the proposal to extend the time to build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers from 4 to 5 years will lead to a force of 10 operational aircraft carriers by 2040.

we are not just talking about what happens here in the United States, because it is one atmosphere, it is one globe.

It is in the interests of every American, in every community across this land, that we thoroughly examine our entire criminal justice system.

The national disgrace of our present criminal justice system does not present us with the horrifying immediacy of the 9/11 attacks.

I would like to say that we worked, along with staff on this Committee, to bring a panel today that I think is truly extraordinary in its breadth and in its depth of understanding.

The cap-and-trade proposal is really an $846 billion national energy tax that will hit nearly every American.

Cap-and-trade legislation has the potential to devastate the agriculture community with higher operating costs and destroy ways of life in rural America.

This bill will raise electric bills across the country by hindering the development of traditional energy sources while also, ironically, limiting the development of renewable energy.

The disintegration of this system day by day, year by year, and the movement toward mass incarceration... is dramatically affecting millions of lives.

If you want to talk about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power today, without any of the incentives that ought to be in a bill like this and aren't in a bill like this, already reduces greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of…

We find ourselves as a Nation in the midst of a profound, deeply corrosive crisis that we have largely been ignoring at our peril.

You talk about the transition to a green economy. We are all in favor of that. You talk about the creation of green jobs. But isn't a fact that nowhere in your statement or in the Waxman bill is there any description of how we get there?

I have long believed that if we approached the criminal justice system with two principal objectives, that a great deal could be done to restrain it.

I hope you are right about that, Mr. Secretary, because I am very concerned that the countries that we compete with around the world, where we are already far superior in our environmental practices--you have talked about waste and so on.

And look at what we are doing to rural America in limiting access to other forms of energy that farmers, ranchers, and businesses that operate in rural areas need, like coal--coal is treated so poorly in this process.

Congress can certainly take action to prohibit the EPA from acting on that.

we have an unfair allocation here that is going to cause electricity prices to go up for my constituents more than they will in other places.

I am making a plea today for common sense, and I very much appreciate your discussion of the unfairness with the allocations.