George Voinovich

We have passed more Federal workforce legislation than any similar period.

I rise today to explain my opposition to the Restoring America's Financial Stability Act, which the Senate passed last week. It is now clear that over the past decade or so, certain factors played a critical role in leading our Nation into…

It was a bazooka I almost never had to use, but the legislature knew it was there.

The fact is if you have a cap on what you can do, the only choice in some instances is say we have to go to a contractor to get the help, right?

In my opinion, if you are going to do this thing rapidly, there is going to have to be a lot of creativity.

We have to strengthen the acquisition workforce.

We need to improve hiring. We need to improve training.

It is good news to me. I think you understand that you are going to have to have some real flexibilities in the beginning.

It seems to me that you have to prioritize.

The point of this, and I have taken too much time, but the issue is how come you used FCIP and you did not use the regular system in order to hire new people?

I am very disappointed here with you, Mr. Neal.

Let me just say this, what you are saying that has to be done will not happen that way.

I admire him so much for his continuing to have hearings just about every week dealing with the issue of human capital.

It seems to me that is an absolutely wonderful opportunity.

I know Senator Voinovich has said it is one of his huge legacy issues.

There is a statement here to be made from this awful tragedy in the Gulf Coast, and that is we need to move forward with a new energy frontier.

Why wasn't somebody from MMS on that rig 24 hours a day overseeing what they were doing to make sure that they were doing this according to what they were supposed to be doing?

What I want to know is what kind of an organization are we going to put together so that this kind of thing doesn't happen and we can assure the public that if we do another one of these, which I think we need to do, the same thing is not…

Our problem always around here is something happens, and we spend all our time going back over it rather than saying here we are today, and what do we need to go forward.

I think we need to go forward, but we can't go forward unless you have a new protocol and you have the people that you need.

Operation Streamline is a program where illegal immigrants are prosecuted and face jail time for crossing the border.

I think that momentum is building and the policy environment in the U.S. is shifting toward the growth of nuclear power.

I think it is significant that the Secretary of the Department of Energy, Dr. Chu, had an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled America's New Nuclear Option.

Where are we? And how can we recapture our leadership in this area?

The bottom line is that money was collected from ratepayers and it is about $29 billion; $7.5 billion or whatever has been Yucca Mountain.