Patrick Leahy

The local television plays a key role in cities and towns across the country.

In 1999, I introduced legislation with Senator Kohl and Senator Hatch and others that led to the creation of a license for satellite companies to provide local broadcast stations in local markets for the first time.

Congress has facilitated the growth of the cable and satellite industries by providing a statutory license to retransmit broadcast television to consumers.

The LTTE has a history of suicide bombings and other indiscriminate attacks against civilians, using civilians as shields, and preventing civilians under their control from escaping to government areas.

The origins of the conflict arise from decades of the Sinhalese majority's systematic discrimination against the Tamil minority, and its denial of the Tamils' meaningful participation in the political process.

For its part, the Sri Lankan army insists it is targeting the LTTE, not civilians.

The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka that has waxed and waned for decades costing the lives of tens of thousands of people, has exploded into a full scale war and it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the carnage.

It is not the Senate's intent to deduct the funding for victims compensation included in the economic recovery package from the grant money they would receive from regular VOCA formula grants. Through this bill, we intend to provide extra…

This is not a 'gotcha' hearing. This is a hearing where we are trying to move a significant piece of legislation backed by Democrats and Republicans.

We do know that banks and mortgage companies relaxed their standards for loans.

Our bill would actually give new tools for prosecutors to use in their fight against fraud.

We have to rebuild and strengthen the Justice Department's ability to enforce Federal fraud laws.

I do not think we have paid enough attention to the mortgage and financial fraud that has so dramatically contributed to the economic downturn.

We have to find out how you protect the money that is being spent on the road to recovery in this economy.

This is not a partisan issue. This is something that Republicans and Democrats should certainly agree on.

I pushed to ensure that we had a strong, independent Inspector General, and that led to the creation of the Special Inspector General for TARP.

As we all know, we are in the middle of trying to put together the stimulus package.

It is frequently said that the Solicitor General serves as the 10th Justice.

I represent the United States of America.

I pledge to continue this strong presumption that the Solicitor General's Office will defend each and every statute enacted by this body.

I am pleased to tell the managers of the bill and all that we have reached agreement with Senators Enzi, Kennedy, Snowe, and Klobuchar to preserve the important privacy protections of electronic health records in the bill. I think these…

I think the case proves the FDA has to be given effective inspection oversight and Congress should look at requiring specific inspection frequencies for all food plants.

I would like to see some people go to jail.

When somebody thinks they are going to go to jail if they don't report something, report it adequately and clean it up, that is an entirely different thing.

Obviously, there wasn't a heck of a lot of cooperation here.