I have got problems in West Virginia, like every other State.

It is an outrage that you have a company whose profits have soared in the last few years.

the drug dispensing to our veterans is almost criminal, what we are doing to them.

You think right now that we are dependent, strategically, on the things that it takes for the quality of life we have and defending our homeland, that we cannot take care of ourselves right now without outside rare earth minerals?

Do you believe the United States is positioned right now and we have sufficient rare earth minerals to do the job that we need done in this country to defend it and to sustain economic growth that we need or have we become more reliant on…

Well, I, certainly, would be very supportive of any kind of way--this could help solve more than just one problem here, if we were able to expand that and use it wisely.

One of the obstacles that I think all of us who live in rural States are combating every day is the lack of high-speed rural broadband access.

I think we should be looking at rural health as a way to expand the availability of residencies to fill this gap.

West Virginia has 20 critical access hospitals that each play a vital role in providing emergency healthcare services in their local communities.

We have inland ports. I was very much interested in your intermodal.

But since we are held captive in certain parts of our state, it's unfair for our Northern coal fields to pay a higher price than our Southern coal fields or vice versa if we're both going to the same port in Norfolk or wherever.

In my little state of West Virginia, as you know, we depend an awful lot on rail to move a lot of our coal and our product.

An efficient and effective freight rail system is also critical to the success of our Nation's energy and agriculture industries.

But if you can't get the goods to the country and we ain't getting the goods out, we're in trouble anyways.

I think everybody from this experience realizes that, going forward, it is very important to have labor commence these discussions early.

I remain concerned that the rate challenges processed at the STB is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming.

I agree that we need to invest more in our nation's infrastructure, but we also need to be more proactive about improving labor relations.

This is a crisis that we have in our country, and the people it is hurting most are people who are trying to do business.