Mike Johanns

I believe America's energy supply should be stable, clean, diverse, and affordable.

Mr. Secretary, remembering the days when you and I were both Governors, the year 2000, tough, tough time in our States, we had a situation where agriculture was really, really struggling.

Agriculture is part of the solution not only for the short-term but for our long-term domestic energy needs.

Agriculture is a part of the solution, not only for the short-term, but for the long-term domestic energy needs.

Renewable fuel production increases our energy security and decreases our dependence on foreign oil.

The production and use of 10.6 billion gallons of ethanol in 2010 displaced about 445 million barrels of oil.

They decided they didn't want the world to be that way, and so they went to work.

I think we are all convinced that there were some needed changes to bring some sunshine and better regulation to what was happening here.

One of our tribes in Nebraska, the Winnebago Tribe, literally was experiencing unemployment at a 70 percent rate.

Just leave us alone and we will be okay.

I hope you will work with us, the ranking member and the chair. That they have some possibilities.

The more I have rolled that over in my mind it seems to me to be a wise policy to try to build that marketplace instead of relying on the credit.

I can see the difference it has made in my State in Nebraska. It really has transformed the rural economy in many areas.

I have always maintained that the average citizen feels inflation most in two areas, at the gasoline station and at the grocery store

I heard the testimony about how unions have a difference of opinion and I think that is a very fair statement.

What I am looking for is a rigorous analysis that will lead to a right policy choice.

But I think we are overregulating in a massive sort of way, and I just want to try to come to grips with what we are headed toward here.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Now, nobody here is saying, let's not have clean water or clean air. But there has to be some common sense and sensibility about how we are going about this.

These regulations, I read through them before I came over here today, affect real people trying to make a living in my State and in other States in the country.

It is like everybody got instructions, push your authorities to the limit and beyond, and see if they can stop us.

There is nothing in anything I said that says, don't enforce the law.

Common sense goes a long way.

I will just tell you that sometimes when I was invited to a House member's office, or if I didn't know the House member and I didn't check to see which party they were, if they had a problem, I wanted to try to help them work through the…

We have asked the Veterans' Administration to strap on yet another agenda item and another agenda item.