Getting the antibiotics off the market would preserve the efficacy of drugs for both humans and animals.

As a microbiologist, it has been really offensive to me, as I mentioned earlier, to watch what has happened to Staphylococcus aureus.

Every year 2 million Americans acquire bacterial infections during their hospital stays; 70 percent of the infections will be resistant to drugs commonly used to treat them.

The FDA needs clear statutory direction to take aggressive action against this resistance.

We need to reduce that use, and we can, because most of the drugs used by food producers... are not used to treat sick animals.

Animals fed these antimicrobial drugs on a daily basis are a serious public health risk.

We should never in this world have had salmonella infections from spinach.

I urge this panel to lend its support to this bipartisan effort so we can expose information that will inform future steps taken by Congress to improve pilot training practices and ensure passenger safety and confidence.

Passengers deserve only the best-trained pilots, and I commend Secretary LaHood and Administrator Babbitt for recently ordering the FAA inspectors to ensure that regional carrier training programs are complying with the Federal regulations.

Thousands of lives are at stake daily, and these pilots must be compensated properly to ensure that we attract the people who can fly the planes adequately.

Clearly, now more than ever, we need to continue robust support for our Nation's creative industries and workforce.

Thanks, to Congressional Arts Caucus Co-Chair Louise Slaughter and several others, the arts workforce has been thrown a much needed lifeline.

Congress can make--and indeed already has made--a big difference in these musicians' lives.

As the nation continues to shift from an industrial manufacturing economy to one based on ideas and information, cities and states increasingly recognize that the arts and culture are important economic assets.

This is big. This is important. This is good news for the arts.

Arts education is at the core of creating those audiences and helping to create the actual artists themselves.

President Obama has made it clear that arts and music have a critical role to play in improving our workforce, our schools, and our quality of life.

Louise Slaughter, the great leader of our Congressional Arts Caucus, has been very articulate on talking about both the problems that the arts face and the opportunities here.

Today's hearing kicks off a series our committee will hold this Spring to examine how the arts and music can help us rebuild towns and cities and spur economic growth and also how they can help improve student learning.

The President's emphasis on national service epitomizes our core national values and the American spirit.

I commend President Barack Obama for recognizing the urgent need to restore the Great Lakes and the tremendous economic benefit healthy Lakes will bring to communities, businesses and industries.

Now is not the time to be putting a huge number of farmers at risk.

I applaud President Obama's commitment to the veterans of the United States as demonstrated by his increasing the Department of Veterans Affairs fiscal year 2010 budget for health care and compensation.

How can this possibly be fair? A farm making $500,000 is not keeping that money.

The University of Akron in my district is a world leader in polymer research and home to the National Polymer Innovation Center.