I hear a lot of people--and a lot of my friends are dying of cancer--and I know a lot of people with heart conditions.

I'm looking forward to the day when either Senator Harkin or I will be chairman of appropriations. I have a preference.

To have an allocation of less than $30 billion, candidly, is scandalous.

The work of this subcommittee is well known, and our vigorous advocacy for NIH.

As I think it is fairly well known, Senator Harkin and I, over the course of the past two decades, have taken the lead on increasing funding for the National Institutes of Health so that we have taken it from about $12 billion to about $29…

Senator Harkin and I have taken the lead, as is fairly well known, in increasing the funding for NIH from $12 billion to almost $30 billion.

There is a willingness to spend money for incarceration.

The administration has come forward with a cut this year, again. The proposal is to cut NIH by $327 million.

Well, Madam Secretary, I can understand the problem of the backlog, especially when the funding for your Department is cut.

Well, it looks to me as if the rejection of that petition may have been decided by someone at a lesser level than the Secretary.

Shouldn't there be protections in place to protect workers, in case there is a pandemic? Shouldn't we be prepared.

Attitudes are changed in Washington, with political pressure.

I would emphasize that the increase in crime across the country, and especially juvenile crime, really underscores the need for those programs.

the allocation for autism is substantially less than the allocation for other major research activities

I regret that I have to excuse myself. We are very heavily engaged right now with the U.S. Attorneys.

Well, we will continue to work with you, Madam Secretary. We have been for a long time. These are big, big problems. We want to do our best to try to solve them.

I'd like to see it get a little more attention.

Last year, we increased the budget for the subcommittee by $7 billion.

I am interested in how we get my colleagues to spend money for corrections.

It is simply unacceptable to have a $500+ million cut in NIH funding, as proposed by the administration this year.

We have, on the floor at the moment, the legislation involving the U.S. attorneys who have been asked to resign.

We are taking up the bill to change the authority of the Attorney General to replace U.S. attorneys on an indefinite basis, which has caused a lot of controversy.

the funding for autism has risen, as I noted, from $27 million in 1998, to a projected budget in 2008 of $107,870,000

These reentry programs and the legislation that is pending now on second chance, these, I think, are of the highest priority.

Dr. Zerhouni, as you have testified, the deaths due to cancer have declined in the last 2 years.