I rise today to introduce legislation to provide a small interim conveyance of lands to the Sealaska Native Regional Corporation of Southeast Alaska, a conveyance designed simply to keep Sealaska in business for the next year or so to give…

I think it is important that we share our ideas between the two Houses, certainly amongst members and our parties, and I welcome the opportunity for future dialogue on energy efficiency and all things energy.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning to focus on an energy efficiency specifically.

Energy is good. It provides the basis for modern society.

As a consumer of energy, as we all are, we should all be focused on energy and what we can do to make a difference.

There is every reason to be efficient. There is every reason to squeeze everything that you can out of the energy that comes our way.

We must do more to discourage the inefficiencies that I think we see oftentimes with regulation.

I rise today for the fourth time to introduce or reintroduce legislation to settle the outstanding land claims of the Tlingit and Haida Native people, the first people of Southeast Alaska. I first introduced this legislation to speed up…

I rise today to reintroduce legislation to clarify Federal mining law and remedy a problem that has arisen from the extension process for ``small'' miner mineral claims. Under revisions to the Federal Mining Law of 1872, 30 U.S.C. 28(f)…

I thank my colleague from North Dakota. I thank him for his leadership on how we can get the Keystone Pipeline moving, how we can ensure that a resource from our friend and ally Canada can be utilized, can help us here in this country to…

It does force us to deal with a $16.4 trillion debt.

If we are not working every day as lawmakers... then we are not doing right by our constituents.

I am worried that the wolf is already inside.

Well, I would certainly hope that we are looking long term to our critical military assets and don't make short-term decisions based on numbers that simply don't hold up.

One of the most important Federal responsibilities across our Nation is the trust responsibilities for American Indians, Alaska natives.

You're still alive to tell the story.

So then, in addition to what you already have within your State, you think that additional Federal regulation on top of that is a wise thing?

I believe, however, that there is enough domestic production, and the capacity for enough production increase to support our vital manufacturing industry and allow for responsible levels of export.

What Senator Manchin has been talking about regarding the opportunities in his part of the country...

I think, you know, a real understanding of how to carry what we've learned in this country, being such a large oil and gas producer for so many years abroad we really will sort of help to allow the development in a responsible way of those…

We want to be careful. We don't want to run out and do something precipitice that we might regret in terms of policy later.

I'm just going to continue on the discussion of exports.

We need to make sure that these efforts are reasonable, based on sound science and they don't result in unnecessary and overly burdensome regulatory requirements.

I want to acknowledge the comments of my colleague from Washington. As the incoming chairman on the Indian Affairs Committee, she is obviously well aware of the challenges-- oftentimes the horrific challenges--so many American Indians…

I have suggested, too, that we need to be very thorough in the review.