We recognize that, as competent and as able as our friend and former colleague Secretary Salazar is, he can't do this job alone.

I would hope that you'd be willing to take a look at it perhaps with a fresh approach.

Do you believe that the energy development and the environmental protection can be balanced, or are we going to be in a situation where we're having to place additional lands off limits for development?

We recognize that you can have development of your resources or otherwise, you can have development in concert with care and protection of our environment.

I wanted to ask you about the decision that came out last week in Federal district court here regarding the guns in parks.

This is another important step as we work to craft a comprehensive energy bill that's ultimately going to help improve our energy security.

I would think that from industry's perspective, that from the consumer's perspective this is something that will keep us nimble.

Technology is out pacing our ability to set effective standards. So it's time that we streamline the process.

We know that markets aren't perfect. But much of our success in the manufacturing arena is due to the ingenuity within the private sector.

We do need to be more aggressive in staying on top of things rather than operating under agreements that are perhaps 10 years old.

I think for far too long we've let bureaucracy stand in the way of implementing consensus efficiency standards for appliances.

Can you meet it? Can you meet it, given the funding that you have received through the omnibus, and meet that 3-year period?

I think that is a bad model for solving climate. It is a bad model--it is a bad business model for having efficient nuclear power plants.

So far, this Administration has sought to kill Yucca Mountain as a long-term repository for spent nuclear fuel without yet providing an alternative.

I think we need to be watching it very, very carefully.

The decision that was made by the Administration through the budget blueprint that essentially pulls back on Yucca...

It is incumbent upon us to immediately start to identify new geologic repositories.

If nuclear power has a place in our overall energy policy to meet future energy needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and I firmly believe that it does, then we in Washington need to be doing all that we can to move it forward now.

We need to do more. We need to be aggressive with it.

Congress must recognize--and encourage--the development of oil resources on federal lands and on private lands.

We need to make sure that those resources are not closed off as we seek to develop more in terms of our renewables.

We cannot allow our domestic oil and gas production to be shut down in favor of increased dependence on foreign oil.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) supports all state fish and wildlife agencies sharing in part of the revenues derived from energy production in the Outer Continental Shelf.

I appreciate that it's not fully flushed out, if you will.

We ought not to let the jurisdictional disputes with respect to ocean, tidal, wave energy essentially get in the way of us moving forward with that.