Garret Graves

In closing, I just want to say that I appreciate Chairman Bishop's offer to move legislation that the distinguished chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and I will be introducing soon that pertains to this exact issue and to have…

It seems like the Administration is totally missing that.

We, obviously, covered all the key points of this legislation, the important side. I would like to briefly highlight the fact that the U.S. Coast Guard's mission has fundamentally changed over the last several years in regard to the…

I can't tell you how much I appreciate you having this hearing today. I can't tell you how much I agree with you that this is exactly how species should be managed.

The home State I represent, Louisiana, the watershed goes from the State of Montana to New York and comes all the way down. You can take this proposed definition, and you can basically apply it to 90 percent of the lands in south…

I can go through there and find over and over and over again where the Corps of Engineers flat out ignored, ignored the provision; and my 10-year-old could tell us exactly what it means.

To see the President hide behind environmental concerns and oil spill concerns on Keystone Pipeline... is absolutely unacceptable.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous that we still have the volumes of oil that are out there today.

I would consider that to be somewhat of an anomaly, meaning that the operations in that particular situation were an anomaly.

You see a trend of, number one, decreasing incidences, which I think is fantastic.

The higher the price, the better for taxpayers, because the revenues come to the State--excuse me, come to the United States.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

But you do recognize that the Oil Pollution Act also has a savings clause that allows for State authorities, State laws, to continue to apply in cases when they don't--they generally conflict with Federal law.

Louisiana is a huge maritime State, as you know, the third longest coastline in the Nation, 5 of the top 15 tonnage ports in the United States.

And lastly, Madam Speaker, I will just say that this President for years has embraced an all-of-the-above energy strategy, all-of-the-above. This pipeline fits that criteria--it is all of the above. Perhaps I misunderstood and they were…

We have lost approximately 1,900 square miles of those wetlands, which is equivalent to Senator Whitehouse's entire State.

Louisiana is the buffer for Arkansas in regard to hurricane storm surge.

The Federal Government is going to pay one way or another.

If we can get ahead of the problem and make proactive investments like in the hurricane protection system--

Ma'am, we have done a very extensive master plan prioritization process. It is based solely upon science.

As I recall--and I think in the case of the State of Louisiana--that would be determined by the CPRA through a public process.

It is unfortunate that we have to be here today under these conditions, in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

I urge you and your colleagues to support the Restoration Act.

I would just, again, like to express my strong support for this resolution. There's a lot of groups out there, again, that are encouraging flight. The Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagles program will give that young person…

I would just like to say to Ranking Member Ehlers that this is about small businesses, and we want to make sure that small businesses have the ability to compete, especially when it comes to highly technical fields. In many cases it is…