Claire McCaskill

Most average Missourians don't understand why there is a different set of rules for the phone that rings in their house and the phone that rings in their purse.

Can we go after the companies that are providing these numbers that clearly are not the numbers they are calling from?

Because it seems to me that they are just all in at this point.

And this is, they are driving the getaway car.

I guarantee you that criminal prosecutions in this area would be way more popular than just about anything else the Department of Justice does.

I think it was very helpful.

Shouldn't we be trying to influence this process in terms of an oversight function?

I think this is something that obviously people who were responsible for that--I certainly understand that you can have wrongdoers in a business operation and have the head of operation not know about it.

I have worked very hard to expand the protection of whistleblowers beyond government employees to employees of contractors who do primarily government work.

I mean, we have been doing this for 23 years and spent $150 billion, and there has been very little overlooking the shoulder on this.

Do not hold your breath on getting budget commitments 10 years down the line. We have a hard time getting budget commitments 10 minutes from now, much less 10 years down the line.

Don't you think the assertion I am making today--when I have looked at all these contracts, there has been contract after contract where the estimates were low, where safety was not even taken into consideration before the contract began…

The performance bonus was a rite of passage. It was not being based on how well they had performed under the contract.

We have a moral obligation, for example, in the EM program to clean up the sites that are environmentally endangered.

This hearing will focus on contract management by the Department of Energy (DOE).

We have a moral obligation to clean this stuff up, but this, I do not think, is ever going to be anybody's poster child for the most efficient and effective use of taxpayer money.

I do believe that is the case. I think they could be more aggressive in seeking out alternatives.

The investment in small-scale will pay for itself multi-times over rather than abandoning something that you go to large scale without the proper small-scale test.

No one questions the need to do this work, but when hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are at stake, we need to make sure that those dollars are not just being squandered.

Well, you know, I am glad you jumped in, Mr. Sheppard, because the example that piqued my interest in this area was, in fact, the facility where you are working.

It makes contract oversight look shoddy.

Some of my colleagues have advocated doing away with the Department of Energy.

This heavy reliance on contracting is troubling because the Department of Energy's contract management has been on the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) High Risk List since 1990.

Wouldn't we be better off to go with the higher estimates, though, than the lowest?

We have these hearings because we know oversight is needed in this area.