I think that homeland security was favored at the expense of hometown security, and there is, I think, a reasonable case to be made that it was done for political purposes to make America look like it was on a wartime footing.

Her broad experience and success in protecting human health, the environment and effective environmental enforcement is evident.

Thank you for holding this important hearing today to consider the nomination of these three very well qualified individuals to fill key positions over at EPA.

I have known and worked with Cynthia for many years and have seen first-hand her leadership in the Ocean State on many critical environmental issues.

The United States, the water quality here, is the envy of the world.

When you are talking about the waste associated with water use, it is hard to overlook the extraordinary waste of energy and oil and everything associated with bottle water.

I would ask your assurance to all of us that in that balance you will be pressing your organization to push upward as far as the facts and the law will drive.

We have lots of disclosure, but we really have obfuscation by disclosure.

American consumers are relying more than ever on credit cards to just make ends meet from month to month.

This makes me think that we need to really look at substantive regulation.

High-interest-rate debt is financial quicksand for consumers.

The hearing will come to order.

The standard credit card agreement gives the lender the power to bleed their customers through evolving and ever more crafty tricks and traps.

First of all, let me thank you, Chairman, for holding this hearing. This is a very important piece of legislation of those who have lived through it.

It is distinctly in the public interest for this information to come out.

Looking back, do you believe it was prudent as a Nation to have run up, as I calculate it, the $7.7 trillion in debt during those 6 one-party years?

I think that is an unfair thing, it is so un-optimistic about America to cloak it in those terms.

I asked her, where was the minority report; she said there wasn't one.

We seem to have an inability here to grasp the obvious that people who are out there in the environment, working in the real world and the real environment see every single day.

The health care spending will protect precarious State budgets and protect people's health care as they ride out the storm. Isn't that the decent thing to do as this storm hits American families? Another argument: ``Some of it isn't soon…

Today all over the country, millions of Americans went to work unsure whether they would bring home a paycheck or a pink slip. Today, millions of Americans got up, put on their suit, left the house, not go to work, but for another…

When he uses words like 'pandemonium', 'carnival', 'ignominy', 'ridiculous', 'chaos', and 'spectacle' about an organization that he loves so deeply...

if the Senate is dignified and decent, then we can find a way to have that dignity and decency control.

there is an element in this discussion of using the rules that we do pursue to enable the better angels of our nature to come forward.

It raises issues about privacy. It raises issues about civil liberties.