I'm going to be on a tear this year to focus on our water transport because it's crucial.

Well, Madam Chair, I'm with you 1,000 percent. I serve on the Appropriations Committee, obviously, I'm on the subcommittee, but I can honestly say, of all the committees I serve on, there is no budget that is in more crisis than this one.

This budget that we have in front of us... simply does not have enough money to maintain or invest or build the structures that we have to to build an economy that lasts.

So, Madam Chair, just think about this big picture for a minute. Of all the waterways in the country that bring in resources from the South, the East, and the West, our channels, this budget, is barely maintaining one-third of their…

I recognize that the Corps has consistently been woefully underfunded, which presents great challenges in addressing the needs of Louisiana and the Nation.

It's going to bankrupt us.

We are losing 25 to 35 square miles of wetlands per year--about a football field an hour--which places millions of lives and critical national resources at alarming risk.

We also have to be sensitive to the taxpayers that are picking up this tab.

There's no way around it. And until we can figure out a way to put more private and public money on the table, we're not going to get there.

We need to ask the Administration, starting with the thinking that's already done, to think with us, and provide a vision, an idea, for what we need to do about locks and dams and what we need to do about harbors.

And I agree with the Senator that we have to think big, but we're going to need a bigger budget to do that.

But right now, it's got to come from the Administration, and I've got to ask you all to be forceful and fight the fight, and we'll back you up.

However, for the fiscal year 2013 budget year, the President proposes a $48 million decrease.

At a time when NIH budgets are flat, and when the most heavily funded States will continue to be funded as they always have, why would the administration propose reducing the one pot of money that is specifically designed for States that…

I believe that the NIH funding should be a priority and that its benefits extend well beyond its research discoveries.

I do not agree with the funding level proposed by the administration for the NIH.

I'm also troubled with the proposals to cap inflationary cost and reduce the average award of competing research project grants below the fiscal year 2012 level.

This budget is wholly insufficient, and it's not your fault, Madam Chair. It's our fault as the general Appropriations Committee, and we have to say to the President, and to our leadership, we cannot take it, the country cannot.