You get your way in the Federal Government by listening and working with others, but also being driven by a passion.

I think he may be one of the finest leaders that the Veterans Administration will ever have.

I think we forget that today's Veterans Administration really needs to have someone in the highest levels of the Administration that understands today's veteran.

Funding for the NIH lays the foundation for drug and device discoveries over the next 10 years.

A continued commitment to NIH is essential to address our Nation's growing health concerns and to spur medical innovation.

For the millions of Americans suffering from a serious illness, biomedical research is the beginning of hope.

I believe biomedical research is a necessary and worthy investment in the health of our people and the vitality of our communities.

How do you get people, and I'm one of them, I'm sure, to eat an apple instead of a cheeseburger?

When the NIH requests $30 billion or more in taxpayer dollars for biomedical research, which I think is not enough, shouldn't reproducibility, replication of these studies, be a part of the foundation by which the research is judged?

You're going to measure it and see what happens.

So you're not saying you're going to cap it?

What about that kind of percentage?

But isn't some of the program, it seems to a lot of people, to be a march away from NASA--in other words, into the private sector and vendors--rather than what NASA has proven over many years to have?

I believe that the core mission of NASA is to build cutting-edge systems that will allow us to expand our knowledge of the universe.

Is it not possible that the answer to your budget issues is to fund fewer vendors?

When is this administration going to get the message that the Congress, I believe, is not willing to subsidize so-called commercial vendors at the expense of NASA's core mission?

This administration, I believe, seems to think that NASA's job is to use taxpayer money as venture capital to support speculative commercial companies.

Have you given any consideration to changing the cost sharing on the Olmsted Lock from the current 50-50 to something such as 90 percent from the Treasury?