Will you use your office to lead this effort, once and for all, to get a combined effort from a budgetary standpoint and from reaching the policy goals?

It is great to be on this committee.

I believe that this is actually an opportunity to have a productive Federal-State dialogue about practices in either State waters that affect Federal waters or Federal waters that affect State waters.

I should announce, incidentally, before I call on Senator Snowe, that both Senator Hutchison and I read the FBI checks on these two distinguished folks, and it is some of the easiest reading I have ever been through.

As a new Member to the Committee, I will probably have some very naive questions.

Should it be looked at? Sure. There is nothing ever wrong with looking at a system.

Fifty percent of those that go through the mediation process, since we started in April, are being remanded without the actual judicial review.

I think it would be great to have three plans, but for the Senate to decide on one, let alone three, the backlog will get done quicker.

I think your concerns are very valid because you do not want to get into a situation where all you are doing--I think Senator Burr said it--just counting data points because you can do that all day.

I think it is a great idea. I mean, we do it in Alaska with our judicial system.

I like that idea of asking each one of them to prepare a process if you had a clean slate how it would flow.

We would be foolish not to deploy that for the benefit of our veterans who want to use it and know it.

What I am looking for is a three-stage approach in what would be those realistic short-term ideas that we can move forward on.

That is just a production number. It is 'get your widget done and move on.' That is very dangerous when you are dealing with service requirements.

America's fisheries are as important to our coastal communities as agriculture is to the Nation's breadbasket. From New England and the mid-Atlantic to the gulf coast and vast Pacific, America's fisheries contribute $185 billion to our…

I think there is a great service they provide, but they have major systematic problems, that delivery of service is pretty limited.

We have yet to muster and coordinate the various legal policies, medical and budget resources across the DOD to address these types of injuries.

Are you willing to, and maybe you have already done it and I'm just not familiar with it, report to Congress in regards to the status of the military family and the needs they have as the military has changed dramatically over the last 30…

If you ever get an opportunity to move to a 2-year budgeting cycle, I would be a big, big supporter.

I just wanted to bring that to your attention while you were here.

I would be very anxious to work with you on that.

I happen to think it's important. I think that having a layered defense such as we are building, that includes the ground-based interceptors, is very important.

I look forward to working very, very hard for Americans, setting forth a very aggressive agenda on this Committee.

I'm for him anyway, but my wife Sharon said that even if I weren't I would have to be because she's from Illinois too.

Would you be willing to look at a national standard that we can consider implementing to create energy efficient lights?