I find to be very conflicting to the information that is being provided here today.

Protecting our oceans is an environmental and economic imperative.

Thirty million hardly seems like a lot of money if we are the third-largest economy in the world.

Again, I want to thank Dr. Kempton for his testimony and following what has happened in the previous energy bills and things we might do to improve it.

I have said we need to at least double it.

Has decreased, yes. Thank you.

We must strengthen the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by doubling its budget over the next 4 years.

I couldn't agree with you more.

We are very interested and very supportive of that kind of research because we see the problem coming at us very directly now in the Northwest.

Finally, the FAA must work to fix its deteriorated relationship with its workforce, primarily with its air traffic controllers.

I hopefully will have a chance to ask the witnesses today about the NextGen implementation and focus particularly on required navigation performance, RNP.

That is why I introduced S. 213, the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, to ensure passengers can no longer be trapped on airplanes for excessive periods of time without adequate food, water, working restrooms, properly ventilated cabins…

We have relied on the airline industry before to regulate itself on this issue and it has failed.

I recently joined Senator Snowe in a letter to the Department of Transportation urging the Agency to take immediate action to address unmet safety recommendations and issues.

I urge my colleagues to swiftly confirm him as the next Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics at the United States Department of Agriculture.

you actually create a lot of jobs, I would assume, by doing this as well.

But there is no source that takes inherent advantage of the fact that we would create more of a national infrastructure here.

Again, just before we close out, there is nothing about the introduction of more smart grid technology or distributed generation that really gives preference over one energy source or another.

I have one last question about baseload because--I will let you off the hook on this one, Mr. Kelly, but Chairman Wellinghoff was recently quoted as saying baseload capacity is going to be anachronism to where we are going, and in so many…

I think it is very important. When you are dealing with interconnection standards, you are dealing with safety.

But by reducing peak demand, we reduce the cost to the ratepayers.

I would like to know a little bit too from the panelists what contribution they think renewable generation sources could play

I think this means it probably is one of the most significant things that we could do

This hearing will come to order.

What do you think the California experience has been? Are you familiar with that?