I say to Senator Manchin, I want to thank you too because I know you have labored hard on this, and you helped the original cosponsors get together and talk with each other and help them find common ground. With Senator Vitter here, we…

I thank Chairman Inhofe very much. I thank him for his leadership. He is the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I remember we came early on--Senator Vitter and myself--to him, and said: We have been working on this…

I thank the Senator so much. As I have said, he has been a great partner to work with on this. He has always been a man of his word. Senator Manchin is now on the floor, and I thought it would be good for him to talk a bit about his…

I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy until about 3:40 p.m. with Democrats and Republicans who are going to show up here--I think Senator Vitter, Senator Inhofe, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Manchin, and we may have others who…

The key here is that States are going to be able to participate much more. When we started with the original bill, we worked more towards having States participate. I know that Senator Daines has been very generous to us and shown us great…

I thank Senator Whitehouse. I very much appreciate his comments here today and especially appreciate his participation in terms of moving this forward in a bipartisan way. I worked with my staff diligently on this bill. I was lucky to have…

Our constituents living in rural areas should not be left behind.

Having no cell phone reception is not just an inconvenience for people, it can mean not being able to call 911 in an emergency.

Yes, I say to Senator Merkley, you are absolutely right. I am just going to close by saying that the thing we have--and I said this in the beginning. The thing we have worked on and tried to achieve is to make sure that when we crafted…

I say to Senator Merkley, what you point out that is so important for people to understand--when we put the original bill back in there in World War I, it was put in so that a minority could not block it. We had Woodrow Wilson as…

I say to Senator Merkley, I couldn't think of this being a more appropriate time. I think it is fertile ground, and I think it is great that we have come here. The important thing to remember is a point you and I both made in the past, and…

we should reform the 1872 Mining Law to make sure that mining companies pay royalties to taxpayers.