Let me ask the panel to focus on a very specific issue, which is the question of monopoly.

We've seen circumstances recently in which a drug manufacturer has an effected monopoly with respect to one or more of their products.

You've got to catch them.

I think in the long run, if you find this becomes politicized, you will find support for the program dramatically decreasing.

I hope that we can get assurances from you that in your administration of highway grants, you will protect the integrity of the process and not allow political calls to be made and political threats to be made to influence that process.

We need to fix this.

We have seen a rather unseemly spectacle recently which was a member of the Cabinet telling a Senator that they would be punished in grants and in programs in their home State for voting the wrong way on a completely unrelated matter.

Rhode Island is looking at 9 to 12 feet of vertical sea level rise by the end of the century if we continue to do nothing here in Congress.

It is ridiculous for somebody to be able to go from Woonsocket to Attleboro and have it not picked up across the Rhode Island-Massachusetts border.

We shouldn't have to wait around for that.

It is bonkers that a mom and a dad may not know that a 22-year-old or 24-year-old child has been in and out of the emergency room for overdose.

I just want to see it more of a national model.

Do you understand that the Senate has its own independent oversight responsibility here and that we are not an adjunct to the EPA ethics office?

Well, that sounds like a no with regards to the Senate.

this week on an island nation one- tenth the size of Rhode Island, more than 60 countries will gather at the fourth international Our Ocean Conference. Catalyzed by then- Secretary of State John Kerry, the United States hosted the premier…

And will you provide the materials to us so we can engage in that oversight?

I hope that these questions and the independent role of this Committee to do oversight is not something that is going to be overrun in the pursuit of getting these nominees in place.

Last election cycle, there were several reports of robocalls being made to voters falsely telling them their ballot would not be counted unless they updated their voter registration status.

Do you understand that the Senate has an independent role and has a right to independent investigation and independent information, that we aren't just an adjunct of the EPA ethics department?

Would you provide the Committee a list of the firm's pro bono work so that we can make an assessment of whether or not pro bono clients ought to be covered by the ethics pledge?

when you are terrorizing a school into limiting its curriculum only to what is on some test that came in from often, as you said, a vendor out of State, that is hardly serving the children, the school, or the community.

the purpose of the exercise is not to walk away from these kids and fail to keep track of their success.

One of the goals that we had in this Committee in the ESSA bill was to lift the load of testing off schools.

may I bid a public farewell to Emily Enderle, who is here with me and who has served as the lead on my very active and busy environment unit for quite some time now. She is going on to another role in Washington and will continue to serve…

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Tribute to Emily Enderle