Pat Roberts

Roughly 11 months ago, the more-than-800-page Dodd-Frank bill was passed and began the process of what appears to be a re-engineering of our financial markets.

Senators Lugar, Chambliss, and I, all three former Chairmen of this Committee... sent a letter concerned that the Dodd-Frank Act creates a black hole when it comes to regulating swaps and transactions after July 16 of this year--sort of a…

Why does it make more sense to just simply provide certainty until the new regulations become effective?

CFTC oversight is a critically important function of this Committee, and I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today.

We need 17 to get into this.

This example seems to me to be a very normal transaction by a person who deals in the physical commodity, and he was trying to help farmers manage the risk.

What do we do about dairy? I said, 'Punt.'

My concern is that if we start to restrict the ability to use new biotechnologies, you are not going to only hurt sugar beets, you are going to hurt a lot of other crops that go along with it.

Now, you are one of six percent of Michigan farmers who signed up for that. We had two percent in Kansas.

Do you think we will ever see a day when the solar energy program can stand on its own two feet?

I really hope that the Department will offer the public an opportunity to comment on the economic analysis of this.

I want you to get educated and I want you to get involved with whatever associations you have to weigh in on this because that is another thing we do not need, big time.

Of course, your community banks now are under the gun, too, in regards to Dodd-Frank, the bill that is coming down the road.

We do not want other people to do it for us.

I think all of us in the Senate and the House want to thank those in uniform who are protecting our freedoms.

The SNAP Program is going to have to stretch that dollar a little bit more.

I think they went outside what we told them not to do in the farm bill, which is one of our problems.

Why would they pass, or why would they enact spending cuts that would tear at the base of that effort?

We are asking for a change in dairy policy.

You tell him for us that I am now the last Marine in the U.S. Senate, which is sort of a novel thing.

It was very difficult for the committee.

Surely, we can do a better job on a cost-benefit basis, and we hope to get your input.

I mean, who wants to put--that is like something that you put on your breakfast food or something, and who would want that? We ought to say 'scientifically improved' products or something like that.

I was a little struck that only 13 percent of the people that have forest ground are into that program, know anything about it, really, in Michigan.

My Lord, if we cannot offer a program with two steps or one as opposed to 23, it would just seem to me that that was not a very good way to start off with the program.