I have stated before, I am willing to see the gas tax indexed to inflation.

I am not ready to find that solution.

the reason is we have a crisis in the Highway Trust Fund and we have no consensus on how to fund a transformational bill.

We will do both. We will solve our short-term crisis and we will have a long-term bill that everyone is going to be proud of.

The difficulty here, Madam Chairman, and I just want to point this out because the Appropriations Committee will be meeting shortly and going over the transportation appropriation for next year.

I want to get to that transformational bill. But I recognize...we have to figure out a way to replenish it.

If confirmed, will you please review EPA's agency-wide implementation of the Executive Order on Environmental Justice and help to recommend ways that EPA can better implement this order?

If confirmed, will you review EPA's conflict of interest guidelines, including for advisory panels, and recommend ways to improve safeguard against people with conflicts serving on these boards?

If confirmed, will you produce an immediate report on the role of Federal agencies and the White House in reviewing IRIS assessments and let us know how we can better handle these problems?

If confirmed, would you please review EPA's confidential business information rules and recommend ways to increase information disclosure to the public?

The private sector has to be leveraged into this, too.

We just wrote a letter, Senator Rockefeller and I, to talk about the need to move forward with positive train control and other lifesaving measures.

Our high-speed rail in California is projected to save 12.7 million barrels of oil a year by 2030.

It's impossible to talk about high-speed rail without, at the same time, talking about positive train control.

We cannot afford to delay the implementation of positive train control and other life saving safety measures on our Nation's busiest commuter-freight rail corridors.

I hope you'll move quicker than 2015. That was--some places, I have to compromise, but I think it needs to be swifter than that.

High-speed rail is critical, it's just really critical.

Nothing is going to be done unless we keep our eye on the ball.

I think between Senator Vitter and myself, and Senator Landrieu, we can cover the Committee and see what they think about this.

I have really, frankly, learned so much from the people of your State and I have such respect for them.

These deadlines that are asked of you are not just pulled out of the air. There are reasons for it.

Do you know how long it takes us to make a case to our colleagues that we need to take action?

We cannot wait until another disaster strikes.

My bias is in protecting children, and it always has been.

We have learned a great deal over the past few years about why the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System failed.