Nothing is 100 percent safe.

So isn't it true, Mr. Secretary, that as terrible as the tragedy is, that unless we want $14, $16, $18, $20 a gallon gasoline, that it is not realistic to think that we would actually stop drilling for oil and natural gas in the Gulf of…

the best alternative we have for reducing oil over the next 15 or 20 years is to have as a goal electrifying half our cars and trucks.

I appreciate his leadership in that way, and I appreciate the tone of his leadership.

I think it is important--and I believe the President has tried to do this--is the first job in putting this into perspective is to help Americans to understand just how much we rely on oil from the Gulf.

I suspect one reason is the word accountability.

I guess what I am trying to do is discourage the talk that if we just build more windmills, we can reduce the use of oil.

Funding for these programs is crucial for restoring and maintaining healthy and abundant bird populations throughout the United States.

Should we not ask explorers for oil to get a little closer to the oil before they try to do these intricate operations?

If you had open heart surgery, would you want your doctor 5,000 feet away? I would not, either.

Yes. The Oil Pollution Act, I believe you said this, BP is the responsible party by legal definition. Correct?

So, nearly one-third of all the oil that the United States produces today comes from the Gulf of Mexico.

This is an environmental catastrophe. We need to stop the spill, repair the damage, and find out what happened.

This is a time for cleaning up and helping people.

We could address the question of whether clear, consistent and correct information from the Army Corps of Engineers to the community might have saved millions of dollars in records, in homes, and in lives even.

Well, your recommendation has my full support, of course, because it would help with the Chickamauga Lock.

This is a thousand-year rain event.

I think it is important that we have a regular and an open discussion about such things as tritium so that we, Senators, understand it.

Mr. Jaczko, is it approximately correct that the amount of used nuclear fuel that we have stored onsite at the 104 commercial reactors, if we put it all together would it about cover a football field and be 10 or 20 feet deep?

I applaud the President for the quality of his appointments here and for the Commission that is looking at used nuclear fuel.

I think the idea of having more regular oversight by this Subcommittee would be helpful.

I would like to suggest that, and to tie that to the suggestion from Mr. Apostolakis and Senator Sanders' point about tritium.

To the Chairman, if the goal of the Department of Energy program for small reactors is to have two design certifications completed by 2015 and licensed by 2018, is the Department dedicating enough money to permit you to do your job with…

Overall, the nuclear industry has an outstanding safety record.

Secretary Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President Obama's Energy Secretary, says it is still too expensive by a factor of four compared to other forms of energy.