You have urged the EPA to designate the upper Animas as a Superfund site. That is something I support.

Those on the Navajo Nation and others affected by this spill must be compensated.

I believe in the principle of polluter pays.

We will stand with you to make sure it improves every day into the future as you go through and work through all these difficult issues.

I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you calling this hearing because I think what you are trying to do is get to the bottom of what really happened.

What happened last summer at the VA was a betrayal of our veterans.

The behavior you have described is just absolutely appalling to me.

I share the sentiments of my colleagues. It is nice to have you, Mr. Secretary.

These are the kinds of initiatives that in a state like New Mexico are not only incredibly meaningful if they are implemented correctly.

When it comes to broadband, too many Americans have been left behind.

What is going on there is a disaster, and any attention, any help you can bring to that--there must be knowledge within the government body of what is happening and why.

Any engagement you can do with the Tanzanian Government would be critical--I just want to reiterate the scale of killing there--50,000 elephants--that is from aerial census data--have been killed in that country in 5 years.

I do not want this to just be a downer here.

If there is one thing that is a certainty in New Mexico it is that my local forest communities want to play a very active role in the management of their local national forest.

fire suppression has grown from 16 percent of the Forest Service budget in 1995 to over 40 percent in 2014.

This is a very important hearing, and I appreciate both of you working together on this and bringing these issues forward.

I do think that buy in is probably the single biggest hedge we have against litigation.

the fact remains that quadrupling commercial timber projects on national forests would take resources.