You can't tell me that maintaining unused or vacant Federal properties at $25 million per year is more important than reauthorizing the highway bill.

We need to look at ways we can have an adequate source. I would hope we would be open to things such as using carbon fees or other ways to get the revenue necessary.

I can tell you, they are critically important to our national economy, to the Federal Government because of the Federal work force, but also critically important for all of our communities.

Having that kind of analytic rigor behind our decisionmaking is critically important because it then allows us to invest strategically.

We have actually probably done a better job preparing than almost any other State because of the way we are looking at it.

Let us just focus on the 80 percent that we agree on, and we will set the other 20 percent aside until another day.

There is a good deal that we can agree on and work together on, and that is what the people of America sent us here to do.

I believe we cannot afford to ignore the impacts these weather events are having on Federal spending.

the increase in frequency and intensity of those extreme weather events are costing our country a boatload of money--not just the cost that is measured in lives that are impacted but in economic and financial costs as well.

It is easy in a political environment to move toward the thing that gets the most attention, but it is not always necessarily the thing that has the best economic imperative.

We see it time and time again. The communities that are not as prepared do not do nearly as well.

For years, I have been working with a number of our colleagues to address the root causes and unfolding effects of what I believe is one of the biggest challenges of our generation, and that is, climate change.

Today's hearing is not intended to hash out climate science. That is not what we are trying to do. Instead, it is about trying to find common ground.

Focus on the 80 percent where we agree, set aside the 20 percent where we do not agree.

Thank you.

the damage from a storm still fresh in many of our minds, Superstorm Sandy, which impacted, again, my home State of Delaware and many of our neighbors, is estimated to have cost our economy $75 billion.

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