Just leave us alone and we will be okay.

We appreciate your dedication to fighting the good fight for all of Indian Country.

It is also easy to lose sight of the calculated public policy goals of programs like Native 8(a) that were carefully created in furtherance of fulfilling those promises.

One of the biggest challenges we face as Indian people today is overcoming the misconceptions of mainstream America.

We enhance our ability to do the people's business, the business of good government and promises kept.

I've always found that people react better if you ask them to do something then if you tell them they have to do something.

The challenge is dollars. As you know we're a little short of dollars here, spending more than we're taking in and that's a problem that we've got to change.

I think one of the biggest problems in terms of the Federal Government is they're making things more complex instead of making it simple.

I introduced this bill, along with Senators Johnson, Klobuchar, and Franken, on the very first legislative day of this Congress to highlight its importance.

I commend Senator Harkin's efforts to address these issues in S. 187, the Biofuels Market Expansion Act of 2011.

I know Senator Coons is very focused on this set of issues too and will be actively involved in the questions as we get into the hearing.

Thank you for including Senate bill S.187, the Biofuels Market Expansion Act of 2011, among the discussion topics for this hearing.

I'm concerned somewhat about the danger of over shooting the mark on maximizing E-85 infrastructure because I'm hoping that infrastructure compatible drop in fuels such as algae based biocrude and biobutanol would emerge to fill much of…

Putting in place a consistent, long-term federal policy for advanced and cellulosic biofuels is critical to continued development.

Senator Murkowski and I authored a piece of legislation in the last Congress to address those policy challenges through the creation of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration.

I know that one of the problems the CBP has had is that they've done all this new hiring...

I appreciate you all recognizing that because, again, we don't make them there, but we do the training there.

And another related issue is that the Mexican drug cartel has a big presence in the United States.