Sheldon Whitehouse

I look forward to working with you. I think Chairman Alexander has a similar concern.

I consider that to be kind of a market deformation.

To me, one of the elements of this that is most attractive is the potential down the road for advanced nuclear technology to begin to direct its attention to our existing nuclear waste stockpile.

I want to particularly thank Senator Inhofe and Senator Crapo, who are the two opening cosponsors on the Republican side, along with myself and Senator Booker.

The only hesitation that I have about saying that he absolutely ought to come before the committee is that he is now a witness into any legitimate investigation about connections between the Russian election-influenced operation and the…

When we have to try to quantify the damage and we don't get good information because FEMA simply has it wrong, that is very significant.

With respect to delay for delay's sake, when a judge finds that the emails can be made available and the judge finds today that the emails can be made available by Tuesday and the attorney general has kept them bottled up for more than 750…

Through the Chair, I would inquire of the distinguished Senator from Hawaii whether, in addition to the concern about pollution that crosses borders when it flows down rivers or that crosses borders when it comes out of smokestacks and…

The discrepancies between what our university and our coastal resources center are doing and what the FEMA maps show are really considerable.

The FEMA mapping of this has been, frankly, outright defective.

So a Senator of the United States has been accused of violating a rule of the Senate for restating to the Senate a phrase that has been a matter of record in the Senate--if, indeed, that is the case--for 30 years. I yield the floor…

But clearly the content of this letter has been a matter known to the Senate and, depending on what the facts may show, may actually have been a record of the Senate for more than 30 years.

1986. And is the Senator aware of the occasion that brought this letter to the Senate?

May I ask the Senator, through the Chair, if the letter from which he just read has a date?

No amendment opportunities yet.

I think we are turning the Senate into something very unfortunate if zero amendments are going to be allowed.

I look forward to working with you on that.

We are concerned about the debt having gone from $10 trillion to $20 trillion.

Because you do recognize that if you count the growth here in the budget and then you count it again in your tax proposal, that is a double count.

But the only way that that becomes true is if, in fact, the tax reform proposal is deficit neutral.

So your testimony here is that you are not assuming any growth from tax revenues as a result of increased economic activity in reaching the deficit neutrality.

So even Kentucky sees it coming. They just see it in a different light.

I hope that we can look forward to a day when we can have a sober and sensible discussion about that here in Congress.

And the last question is that climate change portends out-year costs for the Federal Government that ought to be budgeted, does it not?

I think we were talking more about this graph, which I think is yours, that shows the adjusted forecast Federal spending.