Tom Udall

The damage is clear. Elections become more about the quantity of cash and less about the quality of ideas.

Our Nation's transportation infrastructure is struggling. Many would say that it is even failing.

The quality of our surface transportation system directly impacts the quality of our economy.

We must ensure that it maintains our Nation's major highways, like interstates 10, 25 and 40, through New Mexico.

We must recognize the toll of our transportation system on our environment.

Maintaining healthy ecosystems will help ensure that our water, air and food is also clean and healthy.

The work of the Fish and Wildlife Service will become more and more difficult.

I do look forward to working on the Committee with the Chairwoman and with the Vice Chairman on cyber security.

It's much easier to go on offense. It's much harder to defend networks and assets in cyber.

We have seen in New Mexico small businesses helping to solve drinking water problems.

I think it is important to emphasize that probably every State around this Committee table has small businesses who are working on these kinds of things.

S. Res. 10 does five simple things: limits debate on the motion to proceed to 2 hours; eliminates secret holds; No. 3, guarantees the majority and minority three amendments with a 60-vote threshold; No. 4, institutes a talking filibuster…

I say to Senator Harkin, one of the things that happened to us right at the end of the Congress was when we had a vote on a piece of legislation called the DREAM Act. I believe the majority had 55 votes for the DREAM Act.

Now there is no doubt the Senate has been reduced to a shadow of itself as the world's greatest deliberative body, a place which, as Sen. Arlen Specter said in his farewell address, has been distinctive because of "the ability of any…

So what we are doing today--and I know Senator Merkley has introduced a freestanding proposal on the talking filibuster, and we have joined together; I have also signed on to that--we have S. Res. 10, filed on January 5, which has the five…

The Senator from Oregon has raised the issue of what we have going on right now is what we call a silent debate. It is a silent filibuster. We have people who say they want to filibuster and object, but then they go home or they go on…

One of the big issues that can help us function better is if we just agree, whether we are in the majority or in the minority, that we want both sides to have the opportunity to debate and to offer amendments. And so we are trying to…

Then it is transparent, then if you as a Senator on the Klamath Basin want to do something, you can go to that Senator--whoever it is--and say: I have an issue with my State. Can we work together to try to work it out? Right now the…

One of the things that happens--and we have seen a lot of this--we know some Senator is objecting, for example, to a nomination, a high nomination in an executive department and does it secretly so we do not know on the Senate floor, the…

It's unfortunate in a sense that we didn't get our wide ranging energy bill out of the committee

That's not a good thing. That hurts our economy, hurts job creation and the like.

If we had a lot of these protocols in place then we probably wouldn't have had to have a moratorium after this spill

Let me finally say to the Senator from Oregon, the Presiding Officer, that I very much appreciate his support both in working with me on the constitutional option and sorting out the details and making sure we have things right and also…

Just as one Congress cannot enact a law that a subsequent Congress could not amend by majority vote, one Senate cannot enact a rule that a subsequent Senate could not amend by majority vote. Such power, after all, would violate the general…

The filibuster has been twisted in a way that it does exactly what the Senator is talking about--slowing everything down. It is an attempt, in a way, to defeat the majority from governing. One of the biggest dangers in a democracy is if…