Tom Carper

This is not an easy thing to do. It is a hard thing to do.

I think every Member of this Committee supports OMB's initiative and effort and wants it to succeed.

We reported a bill, the Federal Data Center Consolidation Act... to enhance the consolidation initiative and improve the quality of data.

Some day, I would just love it if we held a hearing and the private sector shows up on these IT projects and says, we could really learn a lot from the government and maybe we could mentor them, or school them.

We are going to try to get it hotlined and passed by unanimous consent, our data center legislation.

One of the adages with respect to leadership is, do not just do as I say, do as I do.

What I do not want is for us, all of us, to lose focus on a good set of initiatives that are in place.

We are wasting more money now than we did back then on IT.

I have been pushing hard as an authorizer on the Environment and Public Works Committee, chair of the Transportation Infrastructure Subcommittee, pushing hard for us to include in our authorization bill a freight title.

Virginia is continually recognized as one of the top places to do business, and CNBC traditionally ranks us there.

In my State, if Congress does not act to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund, we would see about half of our transportation budget disappear.

I just hope that opening up agricultural exports...specifically poultry exports...is a top priority for some of us on this committee.

I think Australia, New Zealand, and Japan are using non-scientific barriers or quotas to prohibit and restrict trade of U.S. poultry products to those countries.

We used to sell about 1 out of every 100 chickens we raised outside of the U.S.; today it is 20.

I want to be sensitive to what you can say in a public setting.

The week that Barack Obama and Joe Biden were inaugurated as President and Vice President, that week the number of folks filing for Unemployment Insurance was 628,000 people.

Thank you for your stalwart stewardship and leadership in these troubling, trying, but ultimately encouraging months.

I was encouraged by much of what was in the President's Climate Action Plan. However, I was surprised and in fact, disappointed to see what was not included...

It was a bad choice. We are going to do everything we can to reverse that.

I urge my colleagues to keep that in mind.

Do you expect future rules to be implemented this late in the game?

How could we help in this regard, other than passing legislation, which I would like to see us do, but how can we help short of that?

If we are serious about deficit reduction, we need to do three things.

We have seen the deficit come down from about $1.4 trillion in 2009; last year it was only $680 billion.

I am delighted we are having this hearing, and I commend you and Senator Hatch for holding it.