Richard Blumenthal

I am looking at your testimony in describing the three parallel efforts to mitigate the impending shortfall.

So it is absolutely vital that we continue the present pace of building at two submarines a year as outlined by the program submitted by the Department of the Navy.

I appreciate your statement that, to make up for the loss of the strike capacity of the retiring SSGNs, the Navy requested funding of approximately $121 million in fiscal year 2014 to continue the design for the VPM that can launch more…

I would appreciate that. I expected it that might be the response and I do appreciate it.

One of the great advantages--obvious advantages--of the submarine force is its stealth.

Please oppose HR 819, and instead support the National Park Service's balanced and common sense management plan for Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

When voluntary agreements fail to provide for compliance, it seems to me that is the classic instance, assuming that the public interest is involved, where a law is appropriate.

Is there something that either Congress or the FTC can provide to you that would make those voluntary standards or agreements easier to reach?

And I would find that answer satisfactory. And I am not challenging the good faith in providing that answer, except we are living in a revolutionary world.

Isn't it appropriate for Congress to act now, given that, again, for whatever reason the voluntary agreements don't seem to be forthcoming?

We have waited for voluntary agreements. How much longer should we wait?

Unfortunately, is the thrust of what I am hearing at this committee hearing.

And really the only thing that can force compliance is a law, at the end of the day. Isn't that what you are telling this committee?

I have proudly co-sponsored the bill that you have introduced to establish standards for implementation of the Do-Not-Track mechanism, very simply a mechanism that consumers can trust.

I find it somewhat alarming that the keystone to our air superiority for the next decades can be so easily, in effect, reproduced, by the Chinese in so short a period of time.

That is a gap in the insurance market that possibly public policy should be addressing.

But I take it that if you had double or triple or a lot more money, there would be worthwhile research to be done.

I think that is a realistic number.

I appreciate what you said about veterans helping other veterans which seems to be the most productive way to help veterans.

Is it just in one State right now?

Thank you all for being here today and your excellent work in this very important area.

You mentioned VetCorps?

I was thinking the last gold rush was by horse-drawn wagon, so we have come a long way, although our ultimate aspirations may be very similar.

The burden of proof, in effect, is on the argument that there should be no competition.

Conversely, anybody who is familiar with the history of war knows that abuses in the use of aircraft bombing, carpet bombing involving unintended damage or perhaps sometimes intended damage to civilian populations is endemic to the history…