What I really wish to talk about is to give my heartfelt condolences to the people of Japan. We have watched all weekend, my family and I, in horror, watching the scene unfold with the terrible catastrophe that struck Japan on Friday…

Mr. President, I wish to follow the remarks of the Senator from Arizona and associate myself with part of his remarks that have to do with the energy policy of our country. I am disappointed in the administration's reluctance to get the…

I appreciate you saying you are out to get good value for what we spend in Medicare.

Medicare generally pays more for a service in a hospital than in an ambulatory surgical center.

Our health care delivery system needs to focus on the right procedures to the right patient at the right time and place.

I do. Too often we hear: Let's cut Washington. We don't care if the Federal Government shuts down because it's just a bunch of Federal employees. In fact, only 1 quarter of Federal employees works in the Three-State Region that comprises…

I want to thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia. Mr. Speaker, I'm here today because I'm here on behalf of and with the 150,000 Federal workers who live in the Fourth Congressional District in Maryland. But in our region, in…

I want to thank the gentlelady, because I think it's really important for us to understand really who is the Federal worker. You know, what is it that they do? And as the gentlelady has pointed out, our food is safe because of Federal…

I want to thank the gentlelady and my friend because I think what you've done is you've brought the connection from the public sector worker in Wisconsin and throughout our States to the Federal workforce and to the private sector…

Well, I think that you raise such an amazing point for the American people on two points, one about Federal benefits. There is this wide assumption across the country that Federal workers don't contribute to their own health and life…

The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia raises yet another really interesting point and it is that not only could they go anyplace in the United States, but the world is their oyster. We know that our best and brightest are not just…

I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. ____________________

Mr. President, I too take the floor of the Senate to urge all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, to focus on the single biggest domestic threat to our country, our single greatest challenge in the eyes of every Louisianan and every…

It is sort of like Waiting for Godot, it never happens.

Now, I have here that we have been in the 8-hour ozone standard for over 3 years, and this has been communicated to region 6, that apparently two of the five criteria to be designated attainment area have been fulfilled, but that we can't…

I want to thank you, Mr. Garamendi, because I am excited about the prospect of manufacturing again in America. In my home State of Maryland, about 40 percent of our economic base was manufacturing. Today, that's under 10 percent. And I…

Well, let me just go, because I am having a conversation this afternoon with the president of the University of Maryland. I was out at the University of Maryland campus over the past weekend. Like campuses all across this country that are…

Just yesterday, educators from my congressional district were here on Capitol Hill. They were educators from Bowie State University, an Historically Black College that is now poised to get research grants going to Historically Black…