Marco Rubio

I think most of us would, that in this country if you went out and left this building and asked people what is the number one issue facing our country, they would say the lack of jobs or jobs that do not pay what they used to, that the…

Obviously as a community we are very proud of Judge Jordan's nomination and look forward to his appointment.

I'd like to figure out a way where we can create some leverage there, because a spill in one of these places would be deeply disastrous as much as anywhere else.

I think Repsol's one of the companies. There are some other companies we don't know a lot about that are talking about being a part of it.

I think there is something in here that. I've had, I was just in Portland with other counties, and there's a lot of comments that, again, in some places it worked well, and that is when they engaged the locals.

A spill in one of those sites would be even more catastrophic than what happened, based on the currents.

There's this real concern in the Gulf region that, the spill happened, but that the full impact of it may not be known for years

If permitting moves forward at a reasonable pace for projects in the Gulf, then we can put 190,000 more people to work.

I think the very persuasive argument has been made with regards to that.

It would be great if the conservation and environmental community outside of government would tell them, thank you, we appreciate you doing that, but if this ever happens to us, we would like all that money to come to us.

The truth is that my sense is that many of my colleagues who are committed to conservation and the environment probably have conservation and environmental projects in their home state and they see this as an opportunity to take some money…

The challenges politically, as you can imagine, in creating that chain and justifying it become harder

I would like to be able to point to some of the real world--I mean, it sounds like you have a wealth of knowledge.

The standard review that they are using is a lot higher than you might even find in a court of law.

I am not sure it is the GCCF's place to be investigating claims of fraud.

Even though they are not anyone's employee, per se, they are basically----

I want to clarify that in my mind.

No, no, it is not. It is a good suggestion.

It cannot continue in this process where you have a bunch of people out there who feel like their claims have been denied and would like to appeal that decision.

I think what we are learning, and increasingly being confirmed to us, is that the problem here is we have a flawed process, a process that has no uniformity.

The purpose of the fine bill is not to advance any ideological view, but rather to deal with the fact that a bunch of people have been hurt really bad by the negligence of an individual company.

I think the argument is, while we are glad the oil is not spewing and we are glad that you do not see it on the surface... we are concerned that there is a bunch of oil that is still unaccounted for.

In an ideal world, this bill would be written the way the Gulf state Senators want it and spent that way.

Well, just as an update on that, let me state that I am pleased by the unity and progress that has been made by numerous members that have been working on this.

So I think it is critically important that the Gulf states are united in presenting a united front on why it is important this money be assigned, and the argument is this is not general revenue.