Patty Murray

Over the last 30 years, Congress, independent studies, previous administrations have all pointed to and voted for and funded Yucca Mountain as the Nation's best option for a nuclear repository.

But I would assume that a blue ribbon panel would not just say we are going to take this one off the table.

Your budget request includes $4 billion for a new agency at DOT--the Infrastructure Fund, or I-Fund.

This is critical to a number of our agricultural industry now in my State.

Thank you very much, Senator Kohl.

I wanted to ask you, Mr. Secretary, this morning, if I have your commitment to work closely with us, following that directive in SAFETEA-LU, to allocate ferry funding in 2010.

You don't expect to see new requirements, even though we have said this funding can be for longer-term projects.

I was very disturbed about the report yesterday about a young child who was allowed to direct traffic.

The President's budget requested 46 positions for vehicle safety. How many of those positions will be used to hire software engineers?

Well, if the new stories are accurate and the reports are accurate, that the fix is not working...

I think the American taxpayer deserves more, deserves better.

How long will that take?

I look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Secretary, on where the greatest risks exist in rail transit and what steps the Department can take to make transit safer for the millions of Americans who rely on it for their daily commutes.

I was proud that my home State of Washington received $590 million for high-speed rail upgrades along the Pacific Northwest Cascades Corridor.

Also, are you going to be expanding your staff with expertise in electrical and computer engineering for both vehicle safety investigations and regulations?

I look forward to working with the subcommittee and the Secretary to ensure that Maine has the resources we need to maintain our transportation infrastructure.

The DOT is doing good work in so many areas, but we can never ignore the core mission of this agency: to make sure the safety of our Nation's transportation system is there for all of our families.

The American people deserve to have faith in the safety of the cars and trucks they drive to work.

The DOT has met each one and it has worked hard to help our State and local governments meet their deadlines

NHTSA must ensure the industry is honest in disclosing defects, and timely in alerting drivers, particularly when these defects can result in fatal accidents.

The transportation budget has a real impact on real people, people who are struggling in these tough economic times

I'm concerned that, despite the recall of 6 million vehicles here in the United States and 8½ million now worldwide, it's likely that engineers have not yet discovered the problem with the sudden, unintended acceleration in Toyotas.

Do you think the Department's authority to level civil enforcement penalties is sufficient?

We cannot stop working until our economy is steadily growing again and any American who wants a job can find one

I'm really disappointed that the President's budget doesn't include funding for our Odessa Subarea Special Study.