This budget is wholly insufficient, and it's not your fault, Madam Chair. It's our fault as the general Appropriations Committee.

I can honestly say, of all the committees I serve on, there is no budget that is in more crisis than this one.

I say we cannot afford not to make them.

We also have to be sensitive to the taxpayers that are picking up this tab.

And I agree with the Senator that we have to think big, but we're going to need a bigger budget to do that.

We are losing 25 to 35 square miles of wetlands per year--about a football field an hour--which places millions of lives and critical national resources at alarming risk.

I see that in your budget you propose using the $2.4 billion remaining in budget authority related to the 2011 Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) selldown to purchase 27 million barrels of oil to replenish the reserve.

I'm going to write a letter to the President, and ask you all to sign it, and ask him to adjust his budget.

If we don't really understand this mitigation, sort of one for one, like if you take an acre of wetlands, you have to replace it, I'm all for that.

What that means is our economy is weaker every day that a ship has to be light-loaded or stand offshore because the channel isn't deep enough to come in.

I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1817 The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment No…

this money will be shared with all the States. It is appropriate new money paid by BP--not taxpayer money--to the Gulf. Let me thank Senators Boxer, Whitehouse, and Baucus for their extraordinary help on our side and thank Senator Shelby…

let me begin by thanking the almost 15 Members of this body who have been working on this very important legislation for almost 2 years, since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. I particularly want to thank Senator Shelby, who has been the…

We stand with him in supporting the disaster victims, the volunteers, and the first responders.

Thank you very much, Madam Secretary.

It's like deja vu, all over again.

I have great sympathy for Alaska, and I am going to work with Senator Murkowski to think about some exemptions for Alaska that I am going to try to encourage my colleagues to accept.

My goal is to produce a bipartisan, fiscally responsible Homeland Security appropriations bill for 2013.

If Congress approves the President's request, the DHS budget will fall for the third straight year.

Aren't they amazing?

It has been a very good hearing, and I thank the members for coming and paying such close attention to this important budget.

one of the reasons we are not able to get a full extension is over this issue, and the other thing that is in that bill that I strongly object to is an automatic rate increase of 15 percent per year for people that may be in a flood plain.

What I want to make sure is that whatever we do, we are really recognizing the importance of local government in charge of disasters.

I am not going to spend the next 5 years, 6 years, or 10 years, as long as I am here, nibbling around the margins.

I think we are going to have to find a way forward.