This business about public service is to me emotional, particularly when you have to give up what you have to give up to come do it.

I think it was the right decision that Secretary LaHood made.

I think that it is very important that this be a balanced consensus measure to address shippers and the rail industry concerns because both are very important to our economy.

And I think, even today, when you have cloud seeding in one area, we need to know if it affects weather in another area adversely.

Well, one of the things about Hurricane Ike was the flooding, not just heavy flooding, it's not a tsunami, but it is that forceful flooding.

I think what you and Senator Martinez are doing is very important for States like yours and States like mine that are hurricane-prone.

Hurricanes account for billions of dollars of economic loss--an average of more than $35 billion annually in the last 5 years alone.

I've never seen anything like it in my life.

It's not only to see what might have an effect, but what are the unintended consequences.

People can't visualize that they're going to come back and see sticks in the ground, and not a broken air conditioner, not a broken sink, not a thing.

Storms like Ike and Katrina exposed how vulnerable the U.S. remains to natural disasters.

We really have to know what the system is comprised of.