this was a wise decision that I hope will be followed-up with robust budget requests.

I do not want to be rude. You are reading an answer that there is no question to it.

We need to turn to the higher dollar totals you are getting now and for the next few years into verifiable progress in getting clean-ups done more quickly and at lower cost.

Chairman Domenici has never tolerated the Department treating his State or any other State or any locality shabbily.

They are that far away.

Yes, I think it would be a good idea, don't you?

I think it has worked extremely well.

My only point is, and I have been saying this for sometime, and others, it is not just me, that we would be better off if we had the transportation studies done before you do the license application.

So that would be about a year-and-a-half or something like that?

I think that would be the right thing to do.

The budget that OMB submitted for the Army Corps is totally inadequate.

When do you expect to release a transportation strategic plan?

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am very pleased that someone, somehow, has worked through the Office of Management and Budget, and the Executive Branch has finally recognized that this is a truly long-term initiative of great significance.

But you see, that is the problem that a number of people had, and that is, how can you have a license application if you have not done anything about transportation, because they should be one and the same.

But you do not necessarily agree that was a good decision, do you?

But you cannot do that with no money, can you?

This is about $600 million less or a 14 percent cut from the amount enacted in 2003.