Mike Simpson

I fully believe we need to do what we can in terms of climate change and trying to address climate change and carbon emissions and so forth.

Enforcement activities primarily occur in EPA's 10 regions which possess considerable autonomy, causing significant variations in enforcement activities from region to region.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

They just have fewer people amongst whom to split up the costs, and so it is more per homeowner.

Small communities simply cannot afford these loans; in fact, that is one of the real problems we have.

What is important to us with this regulatory procedure is that the EPA follow what we call around here 'regular order.'

I applaud your efforts in that area.

I hear this from Forest Service employees quite frankly all over the country that have talked to me and their concern of the morale.

And why OMB looks at the Forest Service and says that and does not say it in some other area is of concern.

Well, what bothers me a little bit about this is if you only give 60 percent of the fixed costs, you are effectively setting policy.

Chairman Dicks has been a champion in this regard, and I thank him for his leadership.

Our common goal is to establish credible, sustainable wildfire budgets without decimating non-fire-related programs.

And we lose a lot of children by not interacting with them appropriately in the first 3 years of their development.

Somehow we have to get the message out to the public. And that is when Congress will respond.

I have always said, and I am a big supporter of education and math and science and all that, I know it is important, but when we do that at the expense of the arts then I think we lose something.

Science must be the compass guiding our environmental protection decisions; we cannot make the best decisions unless we have confidence in the integrity of the science on which we rely.

Our primary Federal investment ought to be in financial and technical assistance to citizens, landowners, small businesses, communities, States, tribes, and other nations.

I would also humbly and respectfully encourage you to embrace collaboration as the agency moves forward.

I am also puzzled by the fact that the capital improvement and maintenance portion of your budget is slated to receive an additional $50 million.

As a long time supporter of the arts and sometimes called a struggling artist myself, I look forward to each of you sharing your views on the Federal role in supporting culture in the arts.

And no matter what rules you put in place, somebody is going to violate those. If you are a crook, you are a crook.

We have a tendency, and whenever something goes wrong, and you know as well as I do that in a government of this many employees there is going to be some crooks.

My feeling is that there has got to be a better way.

One of my biggest concerns with the Forest Service is the impact that fire suppression costs are having on other program areas within the agency.

I want to commend you because every Chairman likes to be commended by his Ranking Member.