Jeanne Shaheen

And is that decision made in collaboration with any other Government agencies, with any other consideration of what diplomatic or strategic goals we might have around the world?

I would like to continue the long tradition that we have in this subcommittee of working closely together, in a bipartisan way.

I have only one other area that I would like to explore, Dr. Billington and Mr. Dizard, and that has to do with an amendment that was added to this subcommittee's appropriation last year to try and expand the books for the blind and the…

One of the criticisms of the Open World program...was that this was a duplication of programs

I believe with strong oversight and by working together, we can achieve both.

I think of everyone on the subcommittee, only Senator Hoeven is returning.

Preserving these collections is the price of having a mass participatory, democratic society, and we are proud of that.

You could do that now if you chose to.

My friend from Alaska and I, as she pointed out, represent States neither of which has a sales tax. Would the Senator agree with me that if this passes it sets a dangerous precedent that says at any point this Congress could impose on…

I came to the floor this evening to address what is known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, but before I do that, I wish to applaud Senator Coons for his work on the master limited partnerships legislation. I think it is a great bipartisan…

Are you anticipating that? And is there funding in the budget to do things like help lines?

I think sequestration is outrageous. We need to fix it. This Congress needs to act, and it's totally unacceptable that we haven't done that.

I would urge you to do whatever you can to make sure that we are aware here of those efforts.

I look forward to working with my friend from Oregon to try and amend this legislation to address some of the concerns that we, along with a number of other members of this body, share. It should be an interesting week.

That would be helpful.

Do you have data that quantifies what the savings are from those performance contracts that you have put in place already?

I want to go now to one of the issues that I have been very concerned about and very appreciative of the lead that the DOD, and particularly all of our branches of the military have taken, around energy use.

Will the impact of sequestration be enough to prevent you from getting to the 50 percent savings goal by 2020?

I would really be interested in getting that.

We are very concerned with the sequestration.

I appreciate that, although the report suggested that there were some projects that had gone forward without sufficient notification to the appropriate committees in Congress.

But you are assuming you have money that you could shift in the budget in order to accommodate those closures.

So I was struck by the fact--and we had this conversation yesterday--that there is money recommended in this budget proposal to support a new round of base closures.

I think we will have some follow-up questions for the record about some of the differences that we see in what the report found than I understood your answers to be.

I guess my concern--and I am still not clear on how or whether you think it is appropriate to address it--is the oversight of the projects that are undertaken.