It is an honor especially to welcome you as one Navy veteran to another.

I think it may have been a decade since we had a Senate-confirmed Chief Financial Officer in the Department of Homeland Security. I think that is awful.

Almost everybody says we need people to come to work. One of the greatest needs is in terms of cyber.

Making more informed policy decisions will help us protect more Americans from extreme weather and allow us to use taxpayer dollars more effectively.

We need to do a whole lot of that in the days going forward.

How about heat waves? Absent climate change, would we be experiencing events such as the Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave, or this past summer's heatwave in the U.S.?

Everything we do, everything we do we can do better.

We are beginning to turn this adversity into opportunity.

The situation is not hopeless. Working together, we can prevent the worst impacts of global warming.

I think we know where we are going if we don't work together, pull together.

One last question of you, Dr. Wehner, then we will turn it over to Senator Capito.

Can't you guys just work together? Can't you work together? Can't you get something done?

Would you have said when hell freezes over?

I think the consensus around innovation, American leadership, things like the example I just gave you that would probably save lots of lives in Hawaii or California or elsewhere, I think that is part of the reason why things are moving…

I think we have a pretty good idea of what is wrong. And we have a lot of good ideas about how to address it.

We can be proud as Americans that we are leading the pack in terms of addressing climate change.

The human influence on extreme weather and its impacts on people is quite clear.

One of the Ranking Members here was a fellow named Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma, who was a climate change denier.

on September 27, the Environment and Public Works Committee favorably reported the Strengthening Coastal Communities Act of 2023 as an original bill by voice vote. This bill, S. 2958, expands and improves the Coastal Barrier Resources Act…

I think that is really important that we understand, and we dig a little deeper.

Today, I believe the Supreme Court got it wrong, with all due respect, in the Sackett decision.

I also disagree that Sackett means we have lost a lot of authority.

I think it is a moral issue, and it is something that we have a moral imperative to make sure we get it right.

One of the things that Senator Capito and I try to do is develop consensus on difficult issues.

the Sackett decision, in my view, has jeopardized nearly a half-century of progress under this bedrock environmental law.