Tom Carper

I would like to take a few minutes, if I could, just to speak on----

I thank you, Senator Collins, for your leadership, and I thank your colleagues in the Senate and House who recognized the great return on investment from the Special Diabetes Program.

We need to find a way to do it better.

We are losing a half-billion dollars a year in landings, $2 billion a year in economic activities, and tens of thousands of jobs.

Our job is oversight. Our job is to back up the work that is being done.

As a recovering Governor, I will say that in State Governments, it is not always easy to hold people accountable.

I ask the Senate to hold accountable the government attorneys and judges that were the source of this injustice.

Editorial writers are people who enter the battlefield when the fighting is over and shoot the wounded.

But if people in Delaware really behaved egregiously, we tracked their records, tracked their performance and eventually built a case and we were able to remove them from service.

There has been a little bit of discussion on this already. I want to come back and just make it clear, at least for me.

I think we will leave it open for the next couple of weeks.

We have been trying for years to get the Department of Defense to give us audited financials--for years.

I just want to say, thanks so much for making the time to join us today and for providing really an excellent statement.

Well, I understand, Senator Brown, when Sam Adams held forth here, they did not have a public address (PA) system, but I am also told they did not need it.

Not all travel is bad. Senator Brown and I actually got to know each other on a congressional delegation trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that was a good learning experience for both of us

The road to improvement is always under construction.

In terms of what our responsibilities are, as Senator Brown knows certainly as well, maybe better than me, but we play an oversight role.

The point of this hearing has not been, as I said earlier, to adjudicate the laws of the ocean or describe what is right or wrong with how NOAA polices our fisheries.

Congress needs to understand what NOAA is really spending this money for.

I would just ask that as you go forward, that this continue to be the standard that is set, whether they are fired or not, but that they are held accountable in ways that are appropriate.

The other thing that we need to do and seek to do in hearing after hearing is to put a spotlight on bad behavior.

If you do not have the trust between, in this case, the commercial fishermen and the agencies whose job it is to oversee it, you make that change all the more difficult

Congratulations to--I do not know if we have any Bruins fans, but you have done well and you ought to feel very proud.

One of the reasons why we do not get more done in Washington these days is because of a lack of trust, across party lines, across the aisle.

Without enforcement, regulations are nothing more than suggestions.