Ben Cardin

The minority use of crack cocaine is much lower than the incarceration rate of minorities for violations of the crack cocaine statutes.

We know that the overwhelming percentage of people who are incarcerated on crack violations are African American and minorities.

Clearly, terrorism--fighting terrorism was a national priority that, by necessity, received much more attention and requirements for the local U.S. Attorney's Office to devote its resources.

I want to talk a little bit about the U.S. Attorneys and the supervision of U.S. Attorneys.

I think it's, 5 grams will trigger a minimum sentence of 5 years for crack cocaine violations, whereas powdered cocaine, it's 500 grams, so you have a 100:1 disparity.

I appreciate that clarification for the record.

DHS said it had done an "exhaustive" search of its databases and could find no information relating to the MSP surveillance operations.

I thank you on behalf of the people of Maryland, but more importantly the people of the world for your extraordinary leadership in bringing attention to this issue so that, politically, we can get something done.

I think the conclusion is pretty obvious.

I thought it was the right message and I hope a bill at least as strong will move through this Congress and be signed by President Obama.

We all know the problem: The U.S. imports over 65 percent of our oil from foreign countries--many of them openly hostile to our country.

The United States must exercise leadership, there's no question about it.

I believe that we should lead, we should pass legislation, and we shouldn't make a precondition that China or India or any other country agree to the standards.

The roads between Baltimore and Washington were very clear today. Maryland did a good job in cleaning the roads, in case you are wondering.

We're working on some legislation with some other members of the Committee to try to allow some discretion in setting up these types of programs in other parts of the country.

Congress should have been appropriating more money. We're at about 50 percent of what we said was the minimum level for appropriations.

In my campaign for the U.S. Senate in the 2006 elections, there were deceptive practices that took place in Maryland...

I want to call your attention to one other area which could be a concern, and that is the use of rendition, where the United States has custody of individuals and turns them over to other countries, where we know that they will, in fact…

We've had a lot of discussion about the crack cocaine issue. When you take a look at the statistics...

Thank you for being willing to serve your country again.

I would like you to review the laws that you have, the tools that you have today, and come back to us...

When you are confirmed to be the Attorney General of the United States, one of your principal responsibilities is to make sure that access to our legal system is available to all of our citizens.

I ask for your commitment to find ways in which EPA can play a constructive role in reducing the number of children in our Country that have been exposed to lead.

You need to have an effective way to determine whether there is toxic lead dust.

The clear science is that we have to regulate runoff issues.