Jeff Merkley

How urgent is addressing the issue of mortgages as compared to the lending issues and the consumer demand issues that exist as part of this complex problem.

I would be delighted to follow up with you and learn more about how that compares to other experiments around the country.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Senator Merkley asked how many unsolicited tips of misconduct the agency receives that include the detail and sophisticated analysis of the Harry Markopolos document entitled 'The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is a Fraud.'

I think much the same applies in terms of preventing fraud.

I look forward to working with you and with our Ranking Member Senator Shelby.

The biggest barrier to women breastfeeding and continuing to breastfeed for the recommended amount of time is actually their returning to work.

I certainly would draw it to your attention as something that merits--I'm sure what's coming to Oregon may be coming to your State soon.

I look forward to working under Senator Kennedy's leadership this year that we might achieve that goal of universal coverage.

I think that promotion of breastfeeding is one of the things we know can be very effective as part of an effort not only to improve nutrition overall, but to help control over time the high rates of overweight and obesity.

I think that it's widely understood that the best dollar we have in health care is a dollar spent on prevention, on disease management, and therefore we need to do a whole lot more in that area.

If we want to promote breastfeeding we also have to look at the types of policies that promote women being able to take a reasonable leave after birth.

It was reversed at the highest levels of EPA for political purposes.

If we continue on the current course of carbon buildup and other global warming gases, the temperature of the planet could well go up more than five degrees.

The peril of inaction is different for different areas of the Country and quite different for different areas of the world.

There is a need to act, there is a need to act, I believe, for our Country with science in front of us.

It is our belief in our State that it is so important to protect the treasures of this planet as a legacy for our children.

I just want to draw your attention to an EPA report from 2007, which identified 63 sites in 26 States where water was contaminated by heavy metals from dumps, including 3 Tennessee Valley Authority dumps.

My fear is the long-term ecological health of the region and what ends up bioaccumulating into the wildlife over time.

I imagine there are a range of options under consideration, whether or not to go to dry storage, whether to increase the strength of the dikes, et cetera.

It is clear from the pictures and the statistics the scope of the current disaster. I am struck by the numbers of 45,000 pounds of arsenic, more than a million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium, and that the immediate cleanup is…

Is it time to end and outlaw steering payments?

One of the things that is very frustrating to me is I think many of the circumstances we are in right now could be avoided had we had reasonable rules of the road at both the retail mortgage market and in terms of Wall Street supervision.

I certainly applaud the administration on putting forward a budget that seeks to address the incredible mess created over the last 8 years.

We are asking a number of countries around the world to forego reprocessing for that very reason.