Ron Wyden

The history of this, you know, committee and this subcommittee has always been to work in a bipartisan way.

I will defer to the chairman of the full committee.

It is always good to have some testimony that keeps it real.

The longer that I am involved in the issues of public policy and healthcare, the more convinced I am that transparency and getting good information out to the public is one of the most important steps we can take as public officials.

Recently Senator Grassley and I introduced legislation that would allow, after 30 years, the opening up of the Medicare database so as to get information to the public about various claims and patterns.

I think that is right at the heart of it, and I think it warrants some further attention.

Success isn't a slam dunk. We have some major challenges.

I think we can have optimism and confidence based not upon a will of a whisp or some ephemeral kinds of ghosts.

Our Renewable Fuel Standard calls for 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022. We can do that. We will do that. We must do that.

The biggest challenge that we face in biofuels is what I call marketplace expansion.

Our bill, S. 187, does basically three things.

So my message to your committee, Senator Bingaman, to the Congress, and to the American people, is not a message of doom and gloom about our continuing dependence on oil.

We've reduced our dependence on imported oil by 10 percent in less than 10 years.

We need Federal policies to support biofuels expansion.

This gives us a chance--particularly with Senator Murkowski's leadership generally--in water-power technologies to really make a difference.

It's going to allow us to tap, in effect, untapped energy from water on its way to the kitchen tap that's now being wasted.

So, the opportunity to promote clean power generation and create domestic jobs, while at the same time addressing environmental safeguards.

I don't think that passes the smell test. I just think we've got to turn this around.

But I think we recognize--and this is why the legislation today is so important--that there is much more to be done.

An intrinsic flaw of the PPACA is that it fails to unleash the potential of States to innovate in designing reforms that respond to their own unique circumstances.

An intrinsic flaw of the ACA is that it fails to unleash the potential of States to innovate in designing reforms that respond to their own unique circumstances.

I applaud the efforts of Senators Wyden and Brown, I must point out that the bill is woefully insufficient in terms of granting States meaningful flexibility.

It is absolutely outrageous that the Chinese have said again and again that they would not engage in these practices indigenous innovation and these others that are just blatant, you know, protectionism.

I think the Chinese have taken this to a very different, you know, level, particularly the speed with which they move to protect rare Earth minerals.

We've actually seen it in one of our portfolio companies called Solar Power we recently received a $197 million loan guarantee to site a major manufacturing facility actually in Senator Wyden's State in Oregon.