It makes you feel like you want to be dead.

the politics that are so corrosive in this place should be utterly unacceptable when we are facing that kind of challenge as a country.

Thank you, and since there are no other Senators here today, I can say today without fear of contradiction that it is an enormous privilege to represent the most beautiful state in the country, Colorado.

Thank you so much for holding this hearing and thank you for including me. You did not need to do that.

It is my hope that the EPA's Office of Inspector General's report will provide more clarity and transparency on the spill.

The EPA has committed to constructing a temporary treatment plant, as you know, but has not yet committed to finding a way to construct a permanent facility, which I think both of us would like to see.

Look, I think everybody agrees that the EPA messed this one up, right.

I have said that the EPA should be held to the same standard as EPA would hold a private company for the spill.

Well, I appreciate it, and I just want to, as Chairman Gardner said at the outset, thank each of you for taking time to come here today.

For Colorado and downstream communities, there are still serious concerns that exist that the EPA must address.

And I always think when I am there, first of all, what the character must have been like, the collaboration must have been like, and how empty the political conversation here would sound to the people that built Silverton.