Maria Cantwell

Let us get it functioning, the sooner the better.

The lunacy of an administration that cannot make a layup on the Export-Import Bank and increase exports and yet wants to shoot consumers in the foot with a tariff costing us something as the next step is something I disagree with.

The notion that the President thinks and has said... there will be collateral damage... is just not something I think that an economy like the State of Washington... is ready to embrace.

I want a more sophisticated approach. I get that a kind of stomp-your-feet approach makes some people feel good.

They are not going to take over aerospace, trust me.

So this tariff, increasing the cost of products imported from China, you do not think is going to add to this?

I am just talking about his tweets. If he has backed off on that--I believe anybody can learn, and if he has backed off on that, that is great.

So we work every day to make sure that great U.S. products can reach the customers in international markets.

The Export-Import Bank does not have a functioning quorum. There are $35 billion in pending transactions stuck in that pipeline.

The welfare reform efforts have been successful, but they are over 20 years old.

We are going to keep innovating; that is the key thing in the State of Washington.

So what can we do to get both a better understanding of our real risks and an accurate budget increase to fund what is critical, critical, to our national security?

I have called for a doubling, but I could see where I am wildly underfunding what is one of the most serious threats to us as a nation right now.

So why cut this area of the budget?

And living up to the tri-party agreement?

Will you go back and review those assessments as it relates to Plutonium Finishing Plant and live up to the tri-party agreement?

It is very important that we continue to make progress on the largest nuclear waste cleanup project in the world.

Under this budget, the Department would only be able to maintain status quo without making progress.

I am disappointed by the Administration's approach to the Hanford cleanup.

If the FBI and Department of Homeland Security's recent admission is not a siren, then I don't know what is.

Our energy infrastructure is under attack. It is under cyberattack, and we need to do much more to protect it as a national critical asset.

I would just, again, hope that you, as a Department of Energy representative, would help nurture that process along and not let us get stuck with top-down politics between Canada and the United States that may have a lot of different…

I think you could play a key role, even though State is very much in the lead, because I feel that there is so much dialogue going on between the United States and Canada right now in a lot of trade discussion.

S. 2440, the Comprehensive Addiction, Recovery, Education and Safety (CARES) Act, would provide law enforcement with more tools to hold drug companies accountable.

One key focus of that legislation is putting stiffer penalties on manufacturers who fail to meet the standard DEA has set up for some drugs as addictive as opioids.