Joe Barton

I think what Job Corps brings is hope for the future, a safe haven for students to achieve high school diplomas.

My contention is that, inherent to American citizenship, is the right to have an opportunity, and that Job Corps creates opportunity for young people in circumstances wherein often that opportunity is too difficult to find.

Job Corps students both on and off center are 2.5 times less likely to commit suicide, four times less likely to die from a drug overdose, 15 times safer than their counterparts, 16 to 24 years old nationally.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am not going to take 5 minutes.

Mandates seldom work. Markets do work. My friends on the Democratic side of the aisle haven't pointed out that 19 million Americans have chosen to pay the tax penalty to the IRS, rather than be forced into one of these ObamaCare plans…

if we are going to do a pipeline reform bill is there any reason we couldn't use the same regulatory authority and permitting process for oil and gas pipelines?

Is there any real reason to do that other than that is the way we have always done it?

If our deadlines are too strict maybe we need to expand them a little bit.

We are going to need a lot more energy infrastructure in the next 20 to 30 years and pipelines are going to be a big part of that.

I think we are going to do a pipeline permitting reform bill and we would really like your agency's input.

What went wrong and what do we do to fix it?

I think the political opposition will occur if not in the host community, in the surrounding host communities and the transportation routes no matter where we put it.

In 1982, I was a White House fellow in the Department of Energy, and I played a very minor, minor role in the drafting of what we now call the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

Well, a million years puts it beyond my tenure in this Congress. I mean, we are----

The staff brief--the majority staff brief for this hearing says that the Yucca Mountain site has passed all technical and safety reviews and has been found safe to store high-level nuclear waste for a million years. Is that correct?

For the first time, it will allow interim to have a chance to be certified as we look at the permanent repository.

Right. Well, I can't say that we are a total level playing field, there are people on these panels that disagree with that statement.

I am a proud graduate of Texas A&M which didn't make anything this year.

We always want to score a touchdown. Sometimes we take a field goal. What we don't want to do today is take a safety. Vote for this bill. Let's send it to the other body and continue to work to improve it. It is a good bill. Please vote…

I supported this bill when it came out of the Energy and Commerce Committee 2 or 3 weeks ago, and I want to thank Chairman Walden for his excellent leadership. As he knows, I had some concerns about the bill at the time. I didn't think it…

The transparency needs to happen. It needs to happen not only so we can bring down drug prices, but the things that is going to bring down healthcare costs all together.

I am telling you, and that is what is happening with the PBMs. They are not achieving what they set out to achieve.

This is causing a problem in the market, in the generic drug market. This is one of the reasons why prescription drug prices are so high.

I am opposed when they are causing the public the distress that they are causing them by increasing drug prices the way that they are.

Not everything in the Affordable Care Act was bad. I know that is a shock for my friends on the minority side to hear a Republican say that.