Jeff Merkley

I looked at it and I just went my goodness, this is a nightmare for how a person, a member of a tribe in a place like Washington, D.C., accesses medical care.

Senator Van Hollen mentioned the importance of that, certainly important in my state of Oregon, and we did have the increased funding of--well, it was 17 percent increase.

The budget is a historic first step and the start of an ongoing conversation with tribes.

We've seen interesting reports across the nation from health care clinics that essentially have had the therapeutics, but they don't even prescribe them when people come in.

So in partnership with our colleagues from Indian Affairs, we've been trying to schedule a meeting with OMB and IHS to explore the technical details and there's not been a responsive communication from the Administration.

There's always some reservation on Capitol Hill to forego the oversight function.

We are really pleased that the infrastructure bill had $3.5 billion to clear the backlog on the sanitation deficiencies list at the time of passage.

I hope that we're able to continue this bipartisan tradition.

I hope it is a really good report, and it is very important that we get it on June 15th.

I think the bigger question might be, you know, how do we take advantage of this carbon market?

So again, Chief, I appreciate that you are here today. And I look forward to the opportunity, to not only engage with you and some questions today, but ongoing throughout the course of this year.

We're not sure even if you get a setup, that notice in 72 hours that you're going to get helped and this is what's wrong with health care in America.

I thought that that had a lot of merit to make sure Indian Health Services did not shut down during a government shutdown.

If it is 30 million tons, and then the entire sink is 450 billion, we are talking about one-ten-thousandth of increase in carbon storage.

I don't call them 'congressionally directed', I call them 'community-initiated', because they are community initiated.

One of the conversations in my home state is about the best strategies for making forests more resilient, more resistant to fire.

And I hope you will also replicate your emphasis on simplicity. So many of the small communities, you know, do not have grant writers, they find that the process is so complicated that they give up, and don't apply in the first place.

The impacts are here now, and we don't have any time to waste.

We want to keep working with you to explore that question.

Is very soon, like June?

Not one more child should be at risk.

I remain concerned about increasing access to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans.

I just went to the Mass Timber Conference, and it has developed into an industry that has an annual event...

One of the issues that they are wrestling with is the implementation in regard to stream buffers, and how those stream buffers affect sedimentation and other impacts on the streams in terms of both the trout and the salmon.

There is a lot that the Forest Service is doing on mass timber, which is important to our state, and nanotechnology and wood strength.