Patrick Leahy

Conservation in this area is essential.

Secretary Salazar is a rock star in Vermont. People still talk about his visit up there.

I find it extremely troubling and perplexing that the EPA has made cuts in funding to the Atmospheric Mercury Network.

I steadfastly believe in having air monitoring tools to measure and track pollutants.

Construction of a new headquarters will save the Federal Government money, as compared to ongoing lease payments.

The Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF) is one of the most recreated National Forests in the region.

Seeing the benefits of GMNF land acquisition helped inspire me to create the Forest Legacy Program (FLP) which has protected more than 2 million acres nationally.

I have made GMNF land acquisition a priority during my entire time in the U.S. Senate and have seen Federal ownership go from less than 300,000 acres to more than 400,000 acres during that time.

Do you agree with the assessment that the USGS river and lake gauging network in the United States represents one of the greatest return-on-investments of any dollar spent by your Department?

I fought like mad to get that money in the budget, and I would hate to have it go right back out.

I worry that if we don't use it right, we could lose natural resources forever.

I apologize, and I do thank Senator Landrieu also.

I believe that the most important purpose of our Constitution is to place restrictions on the ability of the Government to interfere with our individual liberties.

This picks up right where the Non-Detention Act of 1971 leaves off.

So the time is really now to end the legal ambiguity and state clearly once and for all that the AUMF or other authorities do not authorize such indefinite detention of Americans in America.

[The Government] has made clear, however, that, for purposes of this case, the `enemy combatant' that it is seeking to detain is an individual who, it alleges, was `part of or supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition…

I hope that the Due Process Guarantee Act will serve to open a discussion about how to ensure that no individual arrested within the United States will be detained indefinitely.

This is not unlike the resolution I introduced in 2006 to clarify that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force adopted after 9/11 did not authorize warrantless domestic surveillance.

I firmly believe that the Constitution makes such actions unconstitutional.

Indefinite detention contradicts the most basic principles of law that I have pledged to uphold.

I opposed and will continue to oppose indefinite detention.

I think this violates core constitutional principles of our country.

Questions Submitted by

If I can take a chairman's prerogative here to praise Senator Durbin, who has been a----

Thanks to Senator Leahy, but enough.