Jeff Duncan

The Venezuelan people are hungry.

These ought to be preconditions that the administration puts on the government if they want engagement with the United States.

So Secretary Kerry tells the Maduro government you need to release the political prisoners.

The situation in Venezuela today is truly heartbreaking.

I want the people of Venezuela to know that United States stands with you right now.

We have entrusted these people with access to our country and they chose to violate that trust.

49 percent of all visa overstays, of all illegals in this country, were people that overstayed their visa.

I was disturbed, for instance, when I read from the staff that the Interior Department's Solicitor's Office had concerns when the Denver office of the Park Service originally attempted to steer the award to--of this big contract to a…

I think we have at the Park Service far too many chiefs and not nearly enough Indians.

I have great respect also for people--for education and people who get advanced degrees, but I think the Park Service needs to stop hiring so many Ph.D.s and master's degrees and historians and archivists and environmental activists and so…

It would be a huge game changer for the quality of life in some of these Third World countries.

They want to be an exporter.

But what we see in Venezuela, due to the El Nino and weather patterns that have changed, and a drought, low water levels, they are having to ration electricity due to the hydroelectric dam not having water levels necessary to provide…

Proven sources are fossil fuels, oil and gas that work to provide transportation fuels, but also for electricity.

But then in conversations at the summit, we really started thinking more broadly about the Western Hemisphere and thinking about hemispheric energy independence.

But when I was at the Summit of the Americas last year, we talked a lot about North American, really American energy independence.

I like wind and solar. I fully support countries like Uruguay and Peru and Chile that are going for more renewables.

For the record, I am truly an all-of-the-above energy guy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for this important bill.

I do think it is important to authorize programs and agencies.

If the government spent most of its budget on just updating and modernizing IT systems, could we ever guarantee that they would not be vulnerable to hackers and malicious code? And I think the answer to that is no.

The U.S. is now spending millions on life skills and art seminars for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

And I am assuming you have changed some of these policies to make sure that this type of activity doesn't continue in the future?

Disciplined. In what ways do you discipline somebody like that?

We, as a Nation, are gifted with abundant natural resources. And when we have ocean policies that begin furthering the restriction of access to those natural resources, we limit ourselves in the future of being able to meet our energy…