Joe Manchin

These are the things you can tell us about because this is a national emergency.

We need to ensure that our first responders have the tools they need.

What is your Service doing to achieve greater insights into intellectual property being developed and advances being made by public and private sector research and development?

What current program in your portfolio are you most concerned about? What are the challenges about it that have you concerned and how do you plan on mitigating those issues?

What broader lessons for the future can we learn from these challenges?

The notion of a country--I'll just pick one statistic--that's gone from a 44-year-old life expectancy to a 61- or 62-year-old life expectancy in 15 years, I mean, it--there's just no precedent in human history for that.

The work doesn't end. You can't stop the investment. We've got to continue the partnership.

The triple whammy of sequester on this kind of component of readiness.

I remain opposed to BRAC and do not want to give the department the open-ended authority to pursue another BRAC round.

Sequestration would be reversed if we got a budget, and if we get a budget, then we will be able to do infrastructure and take care of sequestration and have a country that can operate.

There is one other one I had real quick, if I may, on the Contract Tower Program.

The Keystone Pipeline... is one of the few things we have been able to pass bipartisan.

We should not be involved or have any input. That is why you need a TPA.

If it happened a mile down the track, it would have wiped out a whole town.

We were able to do other trade agreements without a TPA. All of a sudden, if we do not have a TPA, we cannot even do a TPP. That does not make sense.

There is no clarity. So it might be something I am throwing at you new because it is a concern to certain segments in my state.

We need more money in the system or else it is going to fall apart.

Why is it imperative to have a TPA just to pass TPP? Why can we not go under the same review that we have had--input that we have had before?

What are we doing to build a relationship or a dialogue?

Do you think we should consider, strategically--would it be something that we could look at that would help us with the European allies that we have, if we used our newfound wealth, as far as the riches and deposits of energy, towards…

I think that President Putin's first goals are really not about Ukraine, it's about changing the West.

The relationship seems to have degraded to the point to where the Cold War is colder today than it was during the Cold War of yesteryear.

Or less dependent on Russia. And I agree.

The President of the United States has refused to provide defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine.

But, as we see it falling apart, we can't take any actions at all to keep it from falling into...