Deborah Koff Ross

this investigation, as you well know, relies intensely on your testimony.

In fact, we have to make some systemic changes.

I received as a Member an e-mail from an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency urging me as a Member not to support this amendment.

It comes down to the question of who is going to pay for it.

Americans have a right to know that the money Washington takes from them is well spent.

And again, as I say, my bill does not do that.

So would it be fair to say, then, that those times that are reported as official time lobbying Congress are done in pursuance to a contract based on collective bargaining?

I am going to be filing a bill that would require OPM to produce this report annually at the end of March.

Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them.

If Federal employees are on official time, can they lobby Congress?

Given that most employees cannot collectively bargain over pay and benefits, can you discuss in detail the sorts of activities labor union representatives negotiate when on official time?

they were supposed to be working, doing EPA work, very important work for, we, the taxpayer; yet they were lobbying Members of Congress to vote against this bill, and that is totally disallowed in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers.

Would it be safe to say that the only hope that we have now is just a strong remediation program that will be located somewhere off the coast of Florida in the event of a spill?

Is there anything that we can do in terms of remediation or at least enforcement of regulation to make sure that what is being done there is in accordance with what we require in our offshore drilling?

are we not affecting other market forces, food crops, food sources and supplies when we are using an edible fuel crop for a fuel source?

if we are going to usher in a green economy, it has been my feeling that we need to do so by way of competition, market forces, as opposed to mandates

my concern is that we have, you know, from a regulatory standpoint, choked so much of our industry

I agree that we have a lot of post offices out there that are close together, and we could do a better job of consolidating and closing some of those that have several close together.

I would just say, if I was sitting in your chair, I would be thinking about a lawsuit saying, wait a minute, you can't take our revenues and pay the pensions of folks that we don't have a relationship with, that aren't servicing our…

It is interesting because when we look back at the history of collective bargaining, especially with public sector unions, it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and both President John F. Kennedy who did not feel that there should be collective…

It appears even though we have had a reduction in work forces, both federally, State-wide and in municipalities, there still exists an unfunded mandate.

But getting the private capital in the market to create jobs is a necessary function of a recovery, wouldn't you agree?

I want to thank you--and that is a rescission of the MSDS, or the musculoskeletal disorders, provision last month.

Are there other regulations that we can anticipate that might be of such egregious nature that are on the forefront of being promulgated?