Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the Menendez proposal which would raise taxes on a handful of our Nation's energy producers. This bill makes the assumption that raising taxes on the five major oil companies will somehow…

We are going to be relying on the Russians to take Americans into space.

Mr. President, let me close by saying I hope we will not do something so wrongheaded and counterintuitive as to take one section of an industry and say you are bigger than all the others, so we are going to tax you differently. We are not…

So we do need the certainty in the permitting process.

I think the interesting thing, too, to point out is that to get the lease, you have already gone through all of the environmental concerns and the safety, and you have gotten the permit.

I want to thank you and the ranking member, Senator Murkowski, and the members of this committee for pushing legislation that will, hopefully, open up our ability to get our energy resources from our own country to alleviate the high…

I believe that the importance of computer training in our lower and middle schools is so important.

I do agree with you, Mr. Rowe, that we need to do so much more to elevate the importance of these very good paying jobs, middle-class income jobs, that are going wanting because we have somehow said if you don't get a college degree, then…

The corporate tax rate in America is among the highest in the world.

I think we do need to stay on top of that kind of a trend and do what we can to assure that America is continuing to be competitive.

I think we are underutilizing our community colleges and our technical and vocational colleges.