Richard Shelby

If we can get a jobs bill passed, that would be a huge benefit.

Alabama has, it is my information, had a high school graduation rate of 67 percent, compared to the national rate of 74 percent.

We want to go where the need is.

It is a devastating time.

I think we need an emergency jobs bill.

My State of Alabama, the unemployment rate in Alabama, February 2007, was 3.4 percent. We had some good years, a lot of good years.

Thank you, Senator Mikulski--Madam Chairwoman. This is the beginning of our fifth year working together on this subcommittee.

Although, through the Department of Commerce, our country is able to maintain high technical standards as well as staying on the cutting edge of scientific research.

Minimal progress has been made in funding and implementing the Adam Walsh Act and a long term and efficient plan for reducing the DNA backlog by increasing public crime lab capacity is nonexistent.

Via the Second Chance Act, the Department of Justice is requesting $140 million to educate and mentor terrorists, pedophiles and career criminals--while requesting minimal funds for reducing the DNA backlog.

The fiscal year 2011 budget request for the Department of Justice is $29 billion. This is a $1.5 billion, or 5 percent increase, over the fiscal year 2010 request.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thank you, Attorney General Holder, for joining us to discuss the Department of Justice and its fiscal year 2011 budget request.

I hope we could reserve the right to hold another hearing on this matter, if warranted.

I just want to thank Mr. Frost, too, for his incisive answers and his background and his experience of safety.

But you benefited from it four times, did you not?

If the commercial route is truly the route that you are headed; wouldn't it be cheaper and wiser to just use a Dragon capsule for this purpose?

I fail to see how this escape pod will lessen our reliance on other nations for our access to space.

According to a July 2009 independent safety review of rocket options initiated by NASA, the Valador report states that the Ares I launch vehicle is clearly the safest launch vehicle option and that it is superior to all other options.

It is my understanding that you have stated to congressional members that you think Ares and Orion are no safer than the Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule.

I want to get into Ares I versus the Falcon 9.

The late President John F. Kennedy must have turned over in his grave. JFK launched the Moon landing program in the 1960s because he understood that any nation that wants to remain No. 1 on Earth must also be No. 1 in space.

Obama doesn't get it. Space is last frontier. President Obama, in effect, pulled the plug on our space program.

U.S. President Barack Obama has lowered the ambition of America. Under the Obama plan, space is not the final frontier, Earth is.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

This is a clear violation of the law that says no money will be used--no funds will be used in any way to change or modify the program for fiscal 2010.