Madam President, I ask to call up amendment No. 2071. There is an agreed-upon substitute text at the desk. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is pending.

But the concern that I have and I continue to raise is that this seeming inability to assess the cumulative impact of our regulations on the reliability aspect of the electricity sector is something that I think is extraordinarily…

Four years is reasonable.

We must thoroughly examine our responses to storm caused outages so that we can plan better and prepare for the next emergency because we know that there's going to be another storm that comes our way that will drag down the power lines.

I am, perhaps, a little concerned that we may be blurring the lines between our proper Federal role in overseeing the bulk power system and the historic State role in maintaining the distribution system.

I have expressed a great deal of concern about this cumulative impact on reliability from this slew of EPA regulations.

The rise in energy manufacturing driven by new technology is occurring on private lands, not federal lands.

Long lead times should be a reason to approve drilling quickly, not to continue putting it off.

In 2002 the U.S. Senate decided against opening a small section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas production.

Madam President, as certainly every Kansan and all Americans know, our gas prices are on the rise and the U.S. economy continues to struggle. I believe one of the most important things Congress can do now is to facilitate the production of…

I've served with eight presidents. I've gotten to know four of them fairly well. I've never met any man or woman who has a better sense of what is in the interest of the American people and a better understanding of what makes this country…

This is a president we trust, this is a president who sees the complexity and makes the right judgments.

I think that I stand by the statement.

In my view, the last thing we need is a president who believes that he can subcontract our foreign policy to experts at the State Department or for that matter any other department or agency.

The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.

We have the message about simplicity, we have the message about tax reform, and we also, I think, understand the importance of our constituents having convenient service, accurate service, to be able to comply with the tax code.

I think most individuals really do want to voluntarily comply, but, with the complexity and the uncertainty and the lack of getting information, it makes it difficult for that, in fact, to be at the level that we expect it to be.

You are only as strong as your weakest link, and the more people who have access to Social Security numbers, the more vulnerable we are.