When only Members of one party vote for it and not a single Member of the other party vote for it, I don't know that is a normative statement; I think it is just a factual statement, it is a partisan budget.

So I would urge OMB to look at No Child Left Behind in a timely fashion so the Congress can benefit from your analysis before we consider legislation later this year.

But presumably, again, we use that word externalities, but, I mean, the value of a human life, the prevention of the loss of it has to factor in to the decision about whether or not A, to enforce regulations and/or new regulations, I mean…

I just wanted to ask one followup to your line of questioning.

Obviously, if we don't address that inadequacy, all it does is shift the cost of cleanup when an oil spill occurs, such as did at Deepwater Horizon, onto the public, is that not correct?

The cruelty and political toxicity of Chairman Ryan's proposed privatization of Medicare has received a great deal of attention in the press, but the evisceration of Medicaid would have a similar negative effect on individuals, and…

I mentioned in my opening statement that in the partisan budget that passed the House here a few months ago, it slashes Medicaid funding 35 to 49 percent.

Now, that same budget also, in many respects, eviscerated the ability of EPA to continue to regulate under the Clean Air Act.

Ultimately, slashing Medicaid is a shell game in which the House majority would shift costs to the States and localities and the families of America.

Empirical data repeatedly and consistently suggests that the benefits of Federal regulations outweigh the costs by considerable margins.

The consequences of failing to prevent global warming could be severe.

So much for moratorium.

Now, also part of this narrative is that President Obama has just caused an absolute moratorium after the worst deepwater oil spill in American history and that there is this de facto moratorium on Gulf Coast oil drilling.

It is indeed a false choice. And in terms of responsibility for our actions, I would point out to Dr. DesJarlais that EPA is responsible for the fact that air pollution is down 60 percent in this country over 40 years, while our GDP has…

I hope you will actively participate, because, at some point, we're going to have to weigh the policy implications----

I think that we need to fix the law so that we measure the right things as we put these policies forward because it is causing a great deal of resentment among people who are otherwise our close friends.

I think we all were surprised by these incidents, but I'm glad to see you've been working further together.

That disturbs me in terms of precedent.