Clearly, I think we can all agree on what are the goals of health care reform. We want access to quality care at an affordable price. And it kind of gives us a nice way to judge each of these. I am struck. Medicare is going bankrupt in 7…

Dr. Boozman just pointed out that the price controls upon insurance policies is the ultimate in a top-down, bureaucratic, doesn't matter what the market says, we're going to control your costs from Washington. It never has worked. On the…

That is correct. It is kind of a crazy thing where if an HSA is used for a generic price on an over-the-counter drug, which is what we are describing here----

Now, part of our issue is, how do we restore in part the distribution of the sediment from the Mississippi River to rebuild our vanishing coastline?

It seems like in these regional planning councils, the very nature of who is placed on the council and their relative representation will tilt itself toward the result.

But my question is, frankly I have found in this Committee we are guided often by prejudice as opposed to science.

So, I guess I am a little suspicious about this, which may be, if you will, stacked with folks hostile to energy development.

If all we are given is a place for people to vent their prejudices, how does that advance our cause?

The rush to do something in a wrong way has harmful consequences for humans that would not have occurred if done in the right way.

What I am very frustrated by is that I am from Louisiana.

My staff has spoken to service providers in my district who tell us that there appears to be a preference for lower-bandwidth wireless coverage over higher-bandwidth wireline.

Anyone who drives a car, heats or cools their home, or eats food will be affected by the legislation we're discussing today.

I am looking at the amount of emissions, not by forestry, but just by agriculture and, according to the CRS report I am reading, in the last something years it has gone from 460 million metric tons of CO2 to 582.

I presume that you have gone to caves where the bats are not infected to see if this is part of the normal flora.

It seems like this is an opportunistic infection, if you will.

So, to put a point on that, as of right now, you don't know the prevalence in the unaffected caves?

We need a large, healthy bat population in the United States and across the planet. Bats are important to agriculture.

Mr. Secretary, I know I was not in Congress when the original DC Opportunity Scholarship Program passed...

Wouldn't it be prudent to continue the program and conduct a study that actually compares students who use scholarships to those in the DC public schools to determine achievement effects?

Instead of saying boroughs, you should have said parishes. I would have understood that completely. Let us talk English here.

It almost seems like there is a prejudice against this process that is not based upon science.

We can't prove a negative. We can't prove that there is going to be no 30-year effect of having a spill someplace, correct?

Now, I may interrupt, because I gathered that. And you are not from Louisiana, and I think we have the most productive fisheries in the lower 48.

Then I will say that, because there is also a presumption that offshore oil and gas exploration hurts coral reefs.

if you look at the NOAA reports, the Flower Garden Coral Reefs in the Mississippi/Texas area are actually fairly healthy.