Joe Manchin

I think back on that day and I remember it very vividly as if it was just happening this morning.

I want to thank you first of all for your service to our country; and also I thank you for your efforts on drugs. We are ground zero in West Virginia and we appreciate--we need everybody in this fight because it is a war and we must win it.

I believe the RDI program was wrong and we need to make sure it never happens again.

I expect you to look for reasons to read us in rather than looking for excuses to keep us out of the loop.

As Senator Warner indicated, questions will be asked today, and they should be asked today, about whether the right decisions were always made.

Gina Haspel has done and if confirmed, will do likewise.

We must hear how you would react if the President asked you to carry out some morally questionable behavior.

She is a clear-eyed, hard-nosed expert on Russia at a time of mounting threats from that nation.

Well, we're ground zero. West Virginia is number one. We had 909 deaths, out of a population of 1,800,000 people.

If you could just look into that, sir, and if your staff could give us the attention we need, then we'd be greatly appreciative, because they're having serious problems there.

We're just understaffed. I think that's it, in a nutshell, in that prison, with the amount of population base we have.

What do we have to do to get Mr. Inch's attention in that and ask for some help?

I want to thank you. We had a major drug raid, and you all were very much involved in that and made it happen.

I think your cut, I was looking at your cuts, were pretty substantial here, seven percent, $341 million.

I am concerned that the budget may reverse some of the progress our forests have made.

If it is good for the United States forest management, then it should be something that, basically, the private sector should be able to benefit from.

These pipelines are helping secure our nation's energy security. I would much rather be selling gas to Boston than have Russia bring it in.

The increasing market share of the natural gas in our electricity mix has translated into great need for expanding energy infrastructure in the United States, particularly our pipelines.

I applaud you for these grants, and I urge you to bring one of those pilot programs to West Virginia.

I can guarantee you, the black lung disease will continue to increase. This is the only way we had to fight that and to try to stop it.

It is very disturbing because the President has proposed cutting this $45 million from Special Benefits for Disabled Coal Miners.

The other thing we have is the Dislocated Worker Grants to help fight the opioid epidemic, and you know it is just a horrible tragedy on our country.

Since the beginning of 2017, 19 miners have died in America, coalminers. Ten of them have been in my State and Senator Capito's State of West Virginia.

I am concerned about some of the proposed rollbacks. I know the funding has been increased, but some of the rollbacks of the safety measures, especially air quality standards, I am very much concerned about that.

The average coalminer, or most of them, are widows who are receiving these pensions, only $595 a month.