Al Franken

If you are confirmed as a district court judge, I anticipate you will preside over more cases in which you will have to draw your own interpretations of Federal law.

It is in large part because of your tenacity and leadership that we haven't seen another major terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11.

Thanks to an amendment by Senators Sherrod Brown, Bennet, Franken and Mikulski, the Bureau will include a Private Education Loan Ombudsman.

So there is no bigger champion of Pell Grants than me.

I want our Pell Grants to be used properly. And I want to be a good fiscal steward. So this actually enrages me.

Why aren't the good actors working here helping us weed out the bad actors and help the industry improve itself?

We know that Indian children do better in school when they have opportunities to learn their language and culture.

We need to support programs that empower our Native communities through education.

I really appreciate that. By the way, the word rabbi in Hebrew means teacher.

I also want to take this moment to thank Senator Grassley for working with me on a GAO request I am planning to file later today related to contractors who have been convicted or found liable for procurement fraud and other misconduct.

Where are we on hydrogen because it, you know, I've been driven in hydrogen vehicle that was fabulous.

I rise to talk about a Minnesota icon. Minnesotans and baseball fans across this country are celebrating the life of Harmon Killebrew today. We lost the great slugger yesterday. I never met Mr. Killebrew, which is kind of hard for me to…

The mission of Better Place is to eliminate our dependence on oil.

I rise to speak in support of the confirmation of Professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. As a member of the Judiciary Committee for the past 2 years, I have had the opportunity to meet with Professor Liu…

That's why I mentioned it.

I think there's concern among the blind community about electric vehicles and that they don't make sound.

Yes, but presumably, you know, you'd just be charging it and then giving that one to the next car.

Electric vehicles and hybrid electrics along with biofuels are going to be key to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and imported oil in the future.

I rise in strong support of Senator Menendez's bill to eliminate subsidies to big oil companies. At a time when we have to make tough choices to address our budget deficit, when we are cutting cancer research, at a time when Minnesotans…

To me, this seems like just a bad policy on a number of grounds.

I really resent that implication, I really do. The union members in my State that I work with are among the finest people I know.

In a State like Minnesota, which is not a Right-to-Work State, no one has to join a union.

The disparity of income is higher now in the United States than it has been since the Great Depression.

I take some umbrage about some of the things that were said after I got here.

It creates a lot of instability to not have a large and thriving middle class.