I want to emphasize the importance of that, because if you look back over the past 50 years, many of our foreign policy disasters were based upon skewed intelligence, based upon the desires of the policymakers, whether it was the Bay of…

I think I want to emphasize that, because there's a grave danger.

you need an IG to look at this and shine that flashlight, shine that light on those activities

One of the committee's top priorities is to make sure that each of the intelligence agencies is doing everything that it can to minimize the risk posed by insider threats.

We looked at Turing, we looked at Valeant, and what we found was a pattern of certain, what I call, hedge fund pharma companies buying the rights to a drug and then, overnight, increasing the cost by as much as literally 5,000 percent in…

There wasn't any investment in R and D that would justify that kind of increase.

Last year, the Senate Aging Committee did an extensive investigation into the spiraling cost increases of certain prescription drugs.

One of the issues that really troubles me is the lack of transparency in the system.

S. 109 has 45 bipartisan cosponsors.

FERC also does not properly value baseload sources of energy, facilities that run consistently and are needed to supplement intermittent sources like wind and solar.

However, this is an official hearing of the Committee, authorized by the Chair, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

What we need is 106 things to do with wood fiber and new products that we have not thought about.

Well, I think it is important too because that is a benefit that is hard to quantify, but if you add the transportation costs and the energy that is used--I like the idea of stabilizing energy prices in Maine and also stabilizing the…

We want to credit the Governor and the leadership of the Administration for that. I think that is a good sign.

Stable, federal policy that recognizes and supports the benefits of CHP plants such as our own, is imperative.

I can't resist asking--isn't the Composites Center at the University a cool place?

I urge the Committee to join him in supporting the biomass energy sector, generally, so our projects are more sustainable and able to pursue projects like co-location projects that make use of combined heat and power.

That is something that Lisa Murkowski and I have been trying to address together.