I believe the losses to producers are likely to exceed $100 million.

Our producers have been tremendously patient... But that patience is wearing thin.

I believe that we need to have the same kind of reaction and the same kind of response in terms of dollars, as Senator Hoeven has said.

Collectively they have suffered a half a million dollar loss to their bottom line.

BNSF has put forward a very substantial resource plan to address the need.

We need it for coal and for oil and gas and for other commodities as well.

We're the fastest growing state in the country and the railroads need to bring the resources.

We need--not only do we need to continue to be proactive until we get that, but so does the STB.

What started out to be too big to fail has become for many of these community banks too small to succeed.

We need to offer a timeframe, and so I am curious to anyone who can tell me when we will actually get an answer to small community banks on regulatory relief.

I really care about small community banks. They are the lifeblood, the capital lifeblood for the many, many people in the great State of North Dakota.

Energy independence creates a healthy economy, jobs at home, and directly correlates to our national security.

I prefer that there not be sides but rather that we all pull in the same direction.

So I want to get then to Chairman Broun's illustration and realize maybe you can't answer it from a compound standpoint, so let me ask it from a layman's standpoint.

I want to also say I appreciate Secretary Moniz and Secretary Foxx, who have been very engaged with--at least with the North Dakota Delegation on this topic.

This gets to my concern about a calming scientific approach versus a sort of hysterical approach if you want to know the truth.

But if one is a number 1 and one is a number 2, it seems that the number 1, which in this case is light crude, would be more flammable, more ignitable than the other.

Are there plans to broaden the study considering all the plays that might be out there and all the potential there might be for a lot more of this product to be moved by rail?