Tom Carper

I think the U.S. Marine Corps was the first military service to assert audit readiness of a financial statement since the Department first articulated its financial improvement strategy.

I do not think we wish to imply that no progress has been made, obviously, there are some pockets of encouraging progress and that is welcomed and hopefully we will see a good deal more.

We are a country trying to get out of a recession.

I would just note, Mr. Chairman, for the record that this is not a Democratic or a Republican idea.

Our legislation is more measured.

I am not sure if we will have a chance to vote on this proposal this year.

I thought it went way overboard.

A couple of us on this Committee, Senator McCain, Senator Russell Feingold, who is not on this Committee...

We need to go after all kinds of waste, fraud, abuse, improper spending, and all that.

It was declared unconstitutional by the courts.

We need this freeze on overall domestic discretionary spending.

The importance of data sharing in the government. We are one government, but we are thousands of stovepipes.

I understand that the Inspector General noted that we could easily avoid billions in overpayments with a fairly small increase in oversight investment.

The legislation the President signed last month says not only do we want some Federal agencies, we want all Federal agencies to identify improper payments.

Without dreams, there is no reason to work. Without work, there is no reason to dream.

The White House recently announced an initiative to establish a nationwide Do Not Pay List.

We are trying to create almost... a culture of thrift, the idea that we have these huge deficits and we have to look in every nook and cranny.

I was pleased to hear that some of the folks are going back to work building cars, trucks, and vans, and very good ones as well.

Thank you for all your responses and your testimony here.

As this tragedy has unfolded, and we have dealt with it, and we are hearing encouraging reports in the news, with the ability to plug the leak and maybe to do so on a permanent basis, we now turn to cleaning up this mess and trying to make…

Second question, what steps can the Federal Government take to ensure that the next generation of dispersants in the Gulf are greener and maybe even more environmentally friendly than the ones we are already using?

I understand the EPA has been researching the effects of dispersants in a subsurface environment.

Good. I am going to ask you a couple more questions before my colleagues come back and try to take this mic away from me.

So when people ask me saying, what happened to all this oil, this huge amount of oil that came out of the bottom of the Gulf, and now it seems to be going away, some of it has evaporated?

So oil is dispersed in larger pieces of the oil are dispersed, being much smaller, the microbes have an easier opportunity to glom on and go to lunch on the oil.