I am encouraged that now more than a year later, officials in both the oil industry and our government appear to be heeding these lessons and retooling the way they do business.

This is the definition of partisanship and it undermines the integrity of this committee.

It is our obligation as Members of the U.S. Congress to develop constructive ways to help people in the gulf rebuild their lives and their livelihoods.

And is it also true that production on the Outer Continental Shelf actually also increased under the Obama administration over the Bush administration?

I regret very much you're not running for President. I think you would have added some good, common, political sense and a lot of good humor.

I particularly want to thank Chairman McKeon and Ranking Member Smith for their wonderful cooperation in putting together this en bloc set of amendments. Mr. Chairman, I want to just highlight several with which I am associated. Amendment…

I mentioned in my opening statement that in the partisan budget that passed the House here a few months ago, it slashes Medicaid funding 35 to 49 percent.

Obviously, if we don't address that inadequacy, all it does is shift the cost of cleanup when an oil spill occurs, such as did at Deepwater Horizon, onto the public, is that not correct?

Well, if I could commend it to your review, as somebody who ran the eleventh largest school district in America, it costs a lot of money to implement No Child Left Behind, well in excess of $100 million.

When only Members of one party vote for it and not a single Member of the other party vote for it, I don't know that is a normative statement; I think it is just a factual statement, it is a partisan budget.

But presumably, again, we use that word externalities, but, I mean, the value of a human life, the prevention of the loss of it has to factor in to the decision about whether or not A, to enforce regulations and/or new regulations, I mean…

But you might agree that if a subsequent administration finds that, deliberately or inadvertently, there is in fact, by the issuance of a permit, the circumvention of existing statutory framework with respect to regulation, it is incumbent…

Empirical data repeatedly and consistently suggests that the benefits of Federal regulations outweigh the costs by considerable margins.

Ultimately, slashing Medicaid is a shell game in which the House majority would shift costs to the States and localities and the families of America.

I just wanted to ask one followup to your line of questioning.

The cruelty and political toxicity of Chairman Ryan's proposed privatization of Medicare has received a great deal of attention in the press, but the evisceration of Medicaid would have a similar negative effect on individuals, and…

So I would urge OMB to look at No Child Left Behind in a timely fashion so the Congress can benefit from your analysis before we consider legislation later this year.

In aggregate, OMB says this regulation will produce $12.4 billion in benefits for consumers for only $3.7 billion in costs, a 4 to 1 ratio.

Now, that same budget also, in many respects, eviscerated the ability of EPA to continue to regulate under the Clean Air Act.

The consequences of failing to prevent global warming could be severe.

Now, also part of this narrative is that President Obama has just caused an absolute moratorium after the worst deepwater oil spill in American history and that there is this de facto moratorium on Gulf Coast oil drilling.

So much for moratorium.

It is indeed a false choice. And in terms of responsibility for our actions, I would point out to Dr. DesJarlais that EPA is responsible for the fact that air pollution is down 60 percent in this country over 40 years, while our GDP has…

Are there incentives within DHS to make sure that various components of DHS take material weaknesses seriously and understand we have to have an unqualified audit?

Given the progress that has been made, obviously people do take it seriously. And I think it is a testament to your effectiveness as well, Ms. Sherry.