Jim Inhofe

My concern is that it's being budget-driven as opposed to risk-driven.

However, setting it up so that they don't have control over their own assets comes back to haunt us, I feel, quite often.

In the face of all of this, we're forcing our military, the backbone of our Nation's security, to endure a steep and damaging drop in capabilities and readiness.

Let me remind our colleagues that our intelligence reports continue to say that Iran will have this capability--by capability I mean the weapon and the delivery system--as early as 2015, less than a year away.

The reality is that our national security is worse off today than it was 10 years ago.

The reality is that al Qaeda now operates in more countries and more territory than ever before and poses a greater threat to American interests.

I would like to ask, Captain Ostendorff, would you think it is important for us to have the benefit of a complete report, even more complete than the one we have right now?

Not only are the U.S. nuclear plant designs more robust than Japan's, but our significant cultural differences make it much less likely that we'll face the same problem.

The NRC's workload did not increase the way that it was expected, but the Commission still increased its staff by almost 30 percent.

It is as if the NRC, with its new building and all of its new people, have been using its spare time to come up with new things the nuclear industry must do to maintain compliance with the law.

I think we have an excellent Commission. I mean, all five of you, I just appreciate your service so much, and it is well balanced.

It is very significant that we keep in mind we need the nuclear energy, and there are some who don't want nuclear energy, and we don't want to use overregulation to accomplish the wrong goals.

I will be watching real closely to see--do you have a date that we would have that report?

It is not reasonable for the NRC to use the disaster to justify new, expensive rules that do not reduce risk.

It didn't include all the cultural----

America can afford the defense it needs; it's a matter of priorities.

This is not the kind of issue they need to be worried about.

I urge you to find a bipartisan solution that will remove the under-62 military retiree COLA provision and do it now.

Shifting the burden of the Nation's fiscal problems onto the backs of the troops is unnecessary and in my opinion, is wrong.

I am troubled when I hear we are paying the troops too much and that this is the reason we have to cut back on training, readiness, and modernization of the force.

In my view, the Commission should be allowed to do its job, and I recommend strongly that this provision... be taken off the table now.

This one line in the budget act has created doubt in the minds of the very people who do not need doubt created in their minds.

I remain hopeful that these chips into the walls that surround money known as sequestration will end permanently.

We cannot break faith with those that have served and deployed time and time again and were promised the benefits of this retirement program.

Again, my concern has always been--when I was serving in the Army many years ago, probably before you guys were even born, we were talking to people who were going to be reenlisting, people what were making career decisions, and it was…