We are very proud of your work and we are very proud and appreciate the many contributions you have made.

I think it is important, as you mentioned in one of your answers, that you travel to Indian Country as extensively as possible, particularly at the beginning of your tenure.

I think everybody wants to do what is fair, in implementing what we want done.

That is crazy if you have got that much land set aside, and you can not do anything with it.

I can assure you that this Subcommittee will continue to work diligently with all stakeholders to ensure that the interests of our veteran owned small businesses are being heard and addressed.

To their credit, VA has made a significant effort to increase veteran-owned small business' share of contracts and last fiscal year awarded 14.9 percent of the procurement contracts worth about $2.1 billion went to veteran-owned small…

I applaud these efforts and the work of the thousands of Federal employees tasked to assist our Nation's veterans, but more can and should be done.

Was it to provide service-disabled vets with a contracting program, or was the intent of Congress to provide them with a true business development program?

I think that is where the bigger challenge comes.

So as far as you know that is going on and that is a problem.

I appreciate the testimony. I think you all have raised a lot of... the Committee really are trying to be helpful.

We have got kind of the ongoing discussion about in general excessive use of sole source procurement.

Congressman Boozman spoke about that.

I would like to know when we can expect that report.

The point I want to make to the VA witnesses here today is that the law says verify the database.

Otherwise, it is perfectly reasonable for us to expect reasonable progress toward implementing the legislation we pass.

I was pleased to have championed section 136 of the Energy Bill of 2007.

President Obama has spoken about a $50 billion commitment through that fund.