"You don't have a right under the Stafford Act to be where you were before, to be close to work."
"Now, we have figured out, because industry helps us to figure out, we have real-time figures now about the payback."
"We had to pass a post-Katrina act; we even had to pass a bill that never got through the Senate."
"This is a structural problem. Your mandate is to keep Louisiana, to keep Mississippi, from getting too much money."
"It is hard enough to get money if there is a grand plan, but it is impossible if Congress doesn't see something that looks worthwhile."
"This oversight hearing where you see me asking lots of questions really has more to do with educating me."
"The number of black-owned firms--the word minority is not a word that has any meaning any longer."
"This is going to happen over 20, 25 years, you know."
"Any project this monumental is necessarily incremental."
"I will ask the Amtrak president when he steps forward."
"The Congress will see this as interests who depend one upon another."