Thank you for holding these hearings so promptly, as Senator Lieberman has pointed out.

I want to thank you and Senator Lieberman for your leadership on this. It is so important for the Congress that we get this right.

I am confident we can address these issues before us today in the same bipartisan way that we have addressed everything from intelligence reform to the ongoing investigation of what went wrong during Hurricane Katrina.

I think most people in my State realize that we are not all taking bribes and we are not all lobbyists or crooks, and I agree with them.

I still feel that, ultimately, we may have to have a constitutional amendment, but I am pleased to work with you on legislation short of that.

I am not an advocate of having no earmarks, but I am an advocate for reforming the earmark process.

Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry lobbied their fellow Democrats to filibuster the nomination.

Pam became Katrina. The simulation beam reality, and optimism became the awful truth. We were not prepared.

The Department of Homeland Security has engaged in a strategy of slow-walking our investigation, in the hope that we would run out of time.

Among the offices receiving that memo was the White House Situation Room, which received it at 1:47 a.m. on Monday, August 29, several hours before Katrina made landfall. What happened to that report?

I think it's hers to lose. I think it's the consensus among Democrats that I've talked to that she's clearly in the lead, is clearly the person that they have to beat.

The fundraising and the traveling, things she's done for the party, I mean, she's a real rock star on the fundraising circuit.

I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.

I don't believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines.

The status quo is not sustainable.

If you don't call us within 15 minutes so that we can get the proper equipment, the proper people on the road, a $100,000 fine. I don't know how more serious you can be than that.

I can't tell you that and I'm not here to blame anybody. I really am not. I don't know what happened. I don't know why the concerns and the safety for the men has not advanced as much as the manufacturing of equipment.

As of today, West Virginia's made a commitment and we are changing things and the mines will be the safest in the nation in this state.