Thousands of jobs rely on a fully functioning river system, and I hope COE will continue to respond to these national and local interests.

Flood control, port dredging, and environmental infrastructure projects are very important to our State, and we appreciate your responding to these needs.

The fiscal year 2012 proposal for the Mississippi River and its tributaries has caused concern among commodity exporters who worry about COE's ability to maintain the Mississippi River channel at authorized depths.

Insufficient dredging and an inadequacy of funding for these activities would inevitably result in restrictions on ship traffic and cargo travel.

The President's budget request for the Mississippi River and Tributaries project is $210 million. That is $130 million below the fiscal year 2010 discretionary budget authority.

$100 billion in exports is traversing the Mississippi River annually.

My State is fortunate to border such prominent bodies of water as the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, which are both vital to our domestic economy for shipping and travel.

I cannot help but wonder about how we reconcile the economic requirements of being a robust exporter of goods and services and commodities in the international marketplace with reducing the capacity to handle cargo on the Mississippi River.

Last year after the President recommended cancelling that program, the Congress voted to rescind all the funds.

it is recommended that nuclear energy continue to have a place in the national strategy for energy independence.

I'm hopeful that we can stay on track to meet the goal of developing our heavy lift capacity for operation by 2016.

Your written testimony references the importance of investment in a 21st Century Launch Complex.

I would defer to your judgment.

I am pleased to join you in welcoming this distinguished panel of witnesses to our subcommittee today, the Surgeons General of our military forces.

We are interested to know what are the consequences in terms of the budget request of--for the actions that we are taking and the obligations that we have assumed in that part of the world.

I wonder, is it a concern to you that we may be trying to do too much, given the current economic realities that have changed the price of fuel, the cost of operations, maybe realignment of foreign governments, resource allocations to its…

I am not a fan of the $6 billion that we spend each year on corn-based ethanol.

Given the threats we will face in the future, the F-35B is clearly the aircraft of choice to meet our operating requirements.

Secretary Mabus, the Navy has assumed the lead for the first phase of the European missile defense plan.

You know, it looks like a big reach--a reach for added jurisdiction and a blank check, really. Well, a $6.6 million check----

But, it is harming vehicles.

Well, I'm a little skeptical that we may be--if we do nothing and don't say anything in our report about monitoring this program, that we are really writing a blank check, not just for $6.6 million, which is a lot of money to me, to deal…

The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and preserve the environment, which is vital to the sustainability and quality of life.

We would encourage you to move ahead on it. We hope you don't do like we do here in the Senate sometimes, and just kind of filibuster, talk, talk, and nothing really happens.

We hope the administration will cooperate with this subcommittee, and collaborate on defining a new regime.