Mr. President, for 20 years now, I have viewed the development and deployment of a layered ballistic missile defense shield as vital to our national security. The experience that we witnessed yesterday is something we have been talking…

I cannot think of anything uglier than an ICBM coming.

But to me, I think we ought to, just in my narrow view, what we need to be talking about right now is what happened last Tuesday.

We have slain a large dragon, the Soviet Union, but we live now in a jungle with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.

I would hope that you...would go along with doing everything we can to be as frugal as possible.

I think it is a matter of saving lives.

While I sincerely hope that person is you, clearly it is my responsibility to see that you come forth to hear more on how you plan to avoid those conflicts and how you plan to safeguard the critical mission of NOAA.

Protecting lives and property is a critical mission that NOAA has, and improving tornado warnings and tornado warning lead time is critically important.

I cannot imagine anyone would question your qualifications for this office, and you definitely have it.

I have 20 kids and grandkids that I do not want to hand these burdens off to.

NOAA's polar and geostationary weather satellites currently enable the most accurate forecast in history.

Mr. President, I have 6 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the…

Mr. President, I want to address this body and talk about an issue that we do not talk about enough--the deficit. It is an issue that, for whatever reason, we have stopped talking about in Washington, DC. We talk about tax policy, which we…

Is there anyone on this panel who believes you can do away entirely with fossil fuels and nuclear and still run the machine called America?

If you stop and think about the fact that 80 percent of the energy that runs this country falls into those categories, coal, oil, gas, and nuclear. If you extract that, how do you run this machine called America?

During that Administration, when I would travel around Oklahoma, constituents would be amazed at the fact that we had a President who was opposed to fossil fuels, coal, oil, and gas, and I might add, nuclear.

I think it is of utmost importance that we continue to work diligently to provide economical and affordable energy to everyone.

I think an answer is yes, we do have an all of the above but you have to put the economics in there also.