It was far too long until we had a highway bill, and with your help and others we broke that, and we can do it again.

Now is a critical time to be focused on infrastructure investment.

Thank you for having this hearing today to spotlight the benefits of investing in our nation's water resources.

Safety must always be our top priority when it comes to nuclear energy.

Currently, our country has some 104 nuclear power plants operating in I think about 31 States.

I believe that our nuclear power plants are not required to submit their plans on how to comply with the recent NRC orders until the early part of next year.

I am very pleased with that culture of safety.

I think the industry is working very hard to comply with the required information in a given time period.

But the energy from all those plants has helped to curb our nation's reliance on fossil fuels.

The NRC recently decided to suspend granting new and renewed regular licenses, so that the NRC could address the Federal court ruling regarding waste confidence.

Since the NRC has issued the three orders, could you briefly---and we talked about this a little bit, I just want to come back to it again, but can you just briefly tell us whether any of the operators have begun to make changes to satisfy…

I want to thank both of my colleagues for yielding their time to me.

Can you give us an update on the status of the clean up there, how it is affecting the people there?

I am joined on the floor by Senator Whitehouse, so we might take a moment here with the chairman to have a little bit of a colloquy and then head off to another hearing. While he is here, I wanted to say a special thank-you to Senator…

The message the Senator is conveying today is so important. I hope folks who are unsure about supporting our legislation are listening. I was briefed earlier today by a large multinational company. One of its divisions is manufacturing…

I am going to direct this question to our chairman through the Chair. One of the other criticisms of the early version of the bill was not only was it top-down oriented and directed by Homeland Security, but also there were just sticks…

We are trying to pass some cybersecurity legislation to safeguard our country and help us on our national security and on our economic security.

One of the main reasons we hear that tax reform has again become necessary is the proliferation of new tax breaks added, some of them since 1986.

My colleagues have heard me say this before. We have been joined by Senator Rockefeller, who has done great work, Senator Feinstein, and others, Democratic and Republican, who have done fine work on this legislation. But I love asking…

The question is, is it perfect? Probably not. Can it be made better? It probably could.

Terrific. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you.

while the Senator is still on the floor, I wish to engage in a brief colloquy, ad-libbing this or, as I recall in football, an audible. We have the two people who are most key to this, Senator Lieberman, chairman of our committee, and…

there are several people who wish to be recognized. If Senator Collins is ready to go, I will yield to her and then ask unanimous consent to speak immediately after her, then to be followed by Senator Alexander, if that is the will of the…

I want to make sure that you are hearing it directly from them so you can make the best informed judgment.

The last time our national debt was this high was at the end of World War II. That level of debt was not sustainable then. It is certainly not sustainable today.