the whole reason that Congress creates independent regulatory agencies is to insulate them from Administration policies

In Professor Cass Sunstein, the President has found someone with exceptional qualifications and extraordinary talent.

It is very frustrating to many of my constituents that the rulemaking process appears to be so opaque and so difficult.

I am concerned that the Administration is really putting the cart before the horse here.

I certainly agree with you that the Privacy Act of 1974 has withstood the test of time amazingly well.

How are you going to meet the legislative mandate of the SAFE Port Act with regard to the centers at high-priority ports when you are zeroing out the funding?

But when I talked to the Coast Guard about this issue, and I asked the question--What is the back-up going to be?--there is not an answer to that.

the President's proposed budget would provide no funding for polar icebreakers.

the United States has broad and fundamental national security interests in the Arctic.

the Coast Guard is in danger of losing its polar icebreaking capacity.

I am disappointed that the Administration's fiscal year 2010 budget provides only a slight overall increase in homeland security funding for DHS.

the Coast Guard still requires about $32 million to complete the reactivation.

I am surprised that the President's budget request would cut the Office of Health Affairs by 12 percent compared to last year.

I am optimistic that our new President and his Administration will develop a regulatory agenda forceful in its intent to protect the American people.

It does not make sense to me that DHS is recommending the decommissioning of the LORAN-C system...

I appreciate the difficult decisions that must be made in every budget cycle overall.

I must say, as I talked with Mr. Kampelman and read this op-ed, it put forth an inspiring vision, one that I think all of us wish could come about today.

I'm very troubled by your statement in your testimony saying that the root cause of Somali piracy lies in the poverty that continues to plague this troubled country.

I look forward to getting the specific statistics from you, because it's my understanding that very few of these pirates have actually been brought to justice.

But how many of them have actually been prosecuted?

Additional funding for infrastructure is what stimulus should be about.

I did not support passage of the Recovery Act, but I have always supported investment in transportation because I do believe that these are the types of investments that should be included in any economic stimulus.

I would have preferred more spending be included in the Recovery Act for crumbling highway and bridge infrastructure, as well as water infrastructure and transit.

I am disappointed that the overall total for transportation was only $48.1 billion, and of that total, only $27.5 billion was included for our States to address their ever-growing highway and bridge needs.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was an important step forward in efforts to rehabilitate and improve our Nation's transportation infrastructure system, but there is more that can be done.