Mary Landrieu

Okay, thank you all.

I think at least in my experience, if the goal is to actually educate whatever, 1.5, 1.7, 2.5, you've got to measure it.

The President's budget cut the funding for cyber education by 52 percent.

The reason for that, just to clarify--you of course know it--is that this grid or this infrastructure is the only mandatory regulated infrastructure, to my understanding, the electric grid, through FERC and NERC.

I would describe the National Guard as well positioned to be of great help to our country in this particular line of defense.

What I'm going to continue to press you on is some specifics.

I believe that I have a unique perspective, along with other members as well, on the extent that critical infrastructure throughout our country relies more and more on our interdependent technologies.

So we need to not only be thinking of the big guys, but also the little guys.

And if some of these institutions that would go, could potentially go under, are big enough, you could assume lots of other companies and individuals they could take down with them, correct?

Senator Cochran, thank you for your leadership.

I'm not going to invest money in programs that I'm not sure get a result.

I appreciate being joined by my ranking member, Senator Coats, and I appreciate all the work of Senator Coons.

It's hard to get the groups together to figure that out.

We are very interested, of course, in the testimony, and that will be subject to change as we go.

Thank you very much.

Let me thank my Ranking Member, Senator Murkowski, for agreeing to this hearing as well because I know it's a concern to her.

I really want to begin by thanking Senator Al Franken and Senator Tammy Baldwin for bringing this issue to the attention of this committee.

For years I have been very supportive of the Charter Schools Program (CSP), and thus was disappointed that the administration level-funded the Charter Schools Program in its fiscal year 2015 budget.

It is a proven model. So I am going to be pressing this budget to spend our money where it works, and stop spending money where it doesn't.

I am a strong supporter of high-performing public schools.

It was disappointing to see the level of charter school funding flat.

I have been, along with many Members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, a strong champion for charter schools.

And let me begin by thanking you for your extraordinary leadership all these years on this committee.

We should figure out how to get our troops over there, how to get our troops back, and then how to pay for the tail that goes long into next generations.

This is all the cost of war. This is paying for the cold war when we made these weapons.