John Murtha: “I'm saying they won't kill Americans, Heidi. And I'm saying that they'll be less terrorism, less instability, in Iraq.”

This is a very worthwhile project. Let me say to the gentleman, you see the number of hearings we have had, and the number of earmarks. Our staff went over every one of these earmarks very carefully. It's not on our highest priority list…

But I think in light of the recession and the economic difficulties we are facing it is not a good idea to pass legislation driving American industrial production back to the levels of 1920 at a time of potentially an economic depression.

In this particular case we are looking for is sensors to protect against the type of thing that happened in Yemen with the USS Cole. We have a lot of people working on this, and we hope that we will be able to develop a system that will…

Let me mention to the gentleman, we have a $459 billion bill. We look at every one. We ask the Members to vet them. Our staff vets them. We go over every single earmark. We don't apologize for them because we think the Members know as much…