While we cannot predict when or where the next major disaster will occur, we know adequate preparation and response planning are vital to minimize injury and death when it does happen.

All right. All good ideas. Thank you.

We upgrade our relicensing procedures to formally include seismic safety criteria and standards that directly relate to earthquake hazard.

Over the years, the NRC has strived to create a 'culture of safety' in the U.S. nuclear energy industry.

Senator Feinstein and I also requested special immediate attention be given to those U.S. nuclear reactors that are subjected to significant seismic activity.

I really appreciate the focus that you have brought over the many years.

Thank you so much for being here and for testifying today.

I want, if you would, to just think sort of the big-picture here again as we close out.

We need to answer that question now.

I think the lesson that we need to learn is what can we take away from the events in Japan that would allow us to evolve that plan?

But nothing, nothing is more important than the health of our children and risking their health is an unacceptable price under any condition.

We need to learn the lessons from that. That information needs to be transparent.

Thanks so much. Thanks for coming here to testify for us today. Very, very good testimony. Thank you.

maybe the worst thing that could happen was on the heels of this terrible tragedy... for us not to have learned anything from it.

We have not done that historically when it comes to program management, and I think that is a key area of our reform agenda.

first, I say a special thanks to Senator Corker, not just for what he said about the issues we are facing on the path forward but the nice words he said about his friend from Delaware. It is a pleasure to serve with him. I thank him for…

I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the pending Landrieu second-degree amendment No. 244 and the Johanns amendment No. 161. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Amendment No. 183 Under the previous order, there is…

and colleagues, the question is simple: Can we protect our environment and grow our economy? And the answer is yes. Forty years ago, naysayers claimed the Clean Air Act, signed into law by then-President Richard Nixon, was too costly and…

I do not know that we have a Center for Best Practices for nations like ours that want to learn how to do a census.

Those Canadians are clever, aren't they?

I am privileged to serve on this Committee and privileged to serve as chairman of a subcommittee that deals with, among other things, Federal financial management.

I do not want the folks in this Committee to go through that. I do not want the Senate to go through that.

Additional investment is absolutely necessary.

There was less. For example, California in 2000 spent $24 million to promote the census within California.

The Department of Homeland Security has undergone a number of reorganizations, even though it is not that old.