George Voinovich

I have utilized my role on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia to work with NASA to improve its workforce development.

I have been concerned for many years about NASA Glenn's struggle to obtain an identifiable mission.

I'd like to first commend the Agency for a decision that they made a couple of years ago...

NASA's engineering and scientific accomplishments have long been a symbol of America's innovation and technological excellence.

It's of utmost importance that the Agency have adequate human capital framework to ensure their success.

I was concerned about what the administration would do about the NASA budget.

I was pleased with Griffin's leadership. He did a great job managing and maintaining the ten NASA research centers at a time when the agency was going through a difficult transition.

I think the real challenge now is to make sure that we allocate these resources in the places that it makes the most difference.

I want you to know that NASA is very close to me, I'm wearing this watch that was given to me by the crew of the STS-70.

I just want to interject something. One of the things that I recognize, and we all recognize, is that we, if we are going to talk about a subsidy, is in the grid.

Does green overcome red to the other industries because they are less competitive because of increased costs?

The last time we considered this kind of legislation, the impact on our State would have been a 50 percent cost in electricity, 60 percent in gas and 41 percent in gasoline.

It is going to be a long time before the new jobs in Ohio, the green jobs, are going to compensate for the jobs that we lost because of the high costs of natural gas.

I am a great supporter of green jobs.

If we give the incentives, we make sure the jobs are here and the commercialization is here.

I also observed that many of the companies in U.S. cap are going to make money out of cap-and-trade.

The point I am making is the cost of energy does impact on your businesses and the fact is--are all of you concerned that if we had something that would drive up your electric costs or make it more expensive to buy gasoline?

I contend that, because of environmental policies here where we encouraged utilities to burn natural gas instead of coal and other sources, that we drove up the demand for natural gas.

Many people now engaged in this debate downplay the impacts that climate change will have on our economy.

I would hope that beyond the workshops we have more than one mark up as we did last time.

Climate change is a complex issue that requires examination from a variety of perspectives.

They are just doing a whole lot better; dropout rate down, college attendance up.

I think it is really important that people understand that we want the public school system to improve.

So, Mr. Chairman, I think that one of the things that we ought to talk about--I know what is going to happen here.

Well, this program has been in effect since 1996, and now it is just accepted.