I was pleased to have an opportunity to talk with you recently in my office and to thank you for coming to the great State of Maine to tour our veterans hospital.

My question, however, is did the Air National Guard review current assets, including this facility in Maine, before proposing the funding to build brand new additional secure facilities?

I think it's a huge mistake to have that deadline out there.

I worked very hard to include a critical provision in the defense authorization bill that would help to accelerate the transfer of excess military property.

I will ask you to work very closely with the local redevelopment authority in Maine.

The State of Maine is coping with the imminent loss of a major defense installation.

I am delighted to hear that.

I would encourage both of you to take a look at that facility because if it does meet your needs, we should use current assets and save some money in this very tight budget environment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have explained that the ranking member, due to an unscheduled event, is unable to join you today.

I am going to ask you to speak to this issue, Mr. Hale, because I will be interested to know why the military construction funds are not in the military construction request.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those are my last words.

I think that needs to be addressed, and I would encourage you to do that.

We really need to find a way that allows them to ensure their products are safe, but doesn't put them out of business.

I think that's very important for us to understand, that we're talking about two different pots of money here.

I think so. I think so. Thank you.

I believe for Federal employees it's about one-third of the premium.

Everything we've seen suggests that they're going to have difficulty, now or in the future, with some of these payments.

the administration of this program has been far too lax, and it is not protecting retirees, participants, and future participants.

I am troubled about what happened in this case.

I am going to offer an amendment to put the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman on that council.

I encourage the Postmaster General to negotiate with our unions about cross-craft training.

And it seems like you're choosing a route that goes in the opposite direction.

There should be a committee of Congress watching this, following this, making certain that we are moving toward the same goal.

I have always been a strong advocate for our Federal workforce.

That would be very helpful because, obviously, if there is an imbalance, that is a problem at this time of great budget strain.