We do project for our next fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2009, that we will have a balanced budget.

I believe that the road out of this recovery is going to be led by small business.

We are literally a main artery, if not the main artery, of our nation's commerce.

I want to recognize that her senior counsel is here, Mr. Wally Hsueh.

We work in a very bipartisan fashion on this committee.

Small business cuts across all of the work within the United States Trade Representative.

Let us see if we can't get all these organizations actually honestly working together for the betterment of the companies and for the nation.

without a vision, people perish.

We know that more than 2,300 Louisiana businesses exported goods.

I encourage the Congress to work towards the passage of other trade agreements, such as Colombia and Panama.

Whatever helps our entrepreneurs helps our entire economy.

I, along with my Ranking Member on the committee, Senator Snowe, and Chuck Schumer from New York, who has also been very active in this area, have called for an Assistant Trade Representative focused solely on small business within the…

I want you to know the importance it is to us.

Exporting has become one solution for small businesses looking to survive and grow.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We have got to change our direction.

I believe that we have already authorized you to choose Option 2. I believe that is very clear.

I would just like to close by reading again into the record what the language clearly says about the $3 billion that we allocated in this Congress with a tough battle, a hard fought battle, $3 billion of which $530 million is focused on…

We want to build a better, stronger system with integrated flood control.

However, we are going to pursue whatever it takes to the Corps of Engineers to get this project done correctly.

The coast is in a state of crisis, losing 25 to 35 square miles of wetlands per year.

$40 billion worth of damage caused by the failure of this system.

I am not going to take my eye off of this. And I stated that we are making some progress. But we have a long, long, long way to go.

I do not want anyone to think there are just three canals in this region. That would be a huge mistake.

With the canals closed under this plan and a storm sitting over the city dropping heavy rainfall, Orleans and Jefferson, which is about 1 million people roughly, close to 1 million people, are at risk of catastrophic flooding not from the…