Sheldon Whitehouse

I think we do bring a perspective about the appropriate role of a judge to our duties.

Thank you, Senator Merkley. We very much appreciate your and Senator Wyden's expressions of support for these two nominees.

I have never had any more support shown in a bipartisan way for the nomination of Judge Steve Jones.

I would tend to agree with Senator Sessions on this, and I think a lot of it has to do with resources.

I would like to echo your message to the administration that this is--it is getting a little late to come before a Congressional Committee and not have a point of view and not have a proposal.

A vast majority of our cyber vulnerability would disappear if we could simply get up to basic public, regular, ordinary levels of patching and security

I appreciate the discussion that has taken place, particularly with respect to e-mail, that I think is confounding to even experts.

I am extremely strongly in favor of pushing as much of this to the private sector as possible.

I think another good closing word is a phrase that Ms. Savitz used, that we are continually asking our oceans to take one for the team.

I think the notion that these are uncharted waters, we need to make sure that we apply adequate science to it.

But that shouldn't happen in the deep sea, the attachment to detritus.

But the Government ought to have some oversight.

We could be the Saudi Arabia of clean energy technology.

If there are no adequate technologies or no safe chemicals to respond to spills, then drilling simply should not be allowed.

And the reason that that acute toxicity is not showing up in your field studies is because the concentration that you are testing at is below the level that would cause it, or is it because the creatures you are testing are fundamentally…

To go back to what we do know about the dispersant that Chairman Boxer referred to, which has these characteristics of hazard to humans of liver damage, internal bleeding, and all those sorts of things, how does that transpire?

And you are comfortable that that is a viable indicator?

What are you doing to test for that, just so I understand?

But would you expect to yet? I mean, is this even the feeding season for some of the species?

To go back to bioaccumulation, once you have combined the dispersants and the oil, and now it is being taken up by the bottom level food chain species together, are you equally confident that the bioaccumulation problem is as minimal as it…

And the reason we were told for that is because the damage to the cells is so immediate and so acute that you can't pick up endocrine disruption.

You found indication of endocrine disruption, but not scientifically significant endocrine disruption, or not a scientifically significant signal of endocrine disruption?

I am not suggesting that we have perfect knowledge, I am not suggesting that we don't need more information and more monitoring.

I am purposely focusing on, as I often say, the data, the data, the data.

Let me, if I may, Senator, just add.