Robert C. Byrd

I will give every dollar--I will support every dollar I can to help the troops and provide their--for their safety, and to help win the war.

But we cannot afford to give this Administration or any other Administration a blank check.

The people have the right to know how their monies are spent and to believe that they are being spent prudently.

As long as we have a separation of powers, and checks and balances that are written into this--which you have to live by, which I have to live by, then the liberties of the American people will be secure.

Well, Mr. Secretary, I understand it may be a terrible way, but we are talking about the expenditure of the taxpayers' money.

It is not asking too much of the American people to have their representatives in Congress require the agency heads to answer questions and to place limitations on their spending.

Power is of an encroaching nature, and it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.

Mr. Secretary, I hope you will excuse me for interrupting you; my time is limited.

Well, Mr. Secretary, this is not the first war we have fought.

I expressed my suspicions concerning the word 'flexibility' at that time, and as I sit here, I must ask you.

Do I have more time? What is--is my time up?

Well, experience is showing, and the record shows, that the monies are not getting to the local responders through the State channels.

I think we have an exceedingly important bill. We ought to be allowed to make opening statements.

I do not think it is in the people's interest of this country to rush this bill as it is being rushed.

I am committed to giving our troops in Iraq the resources they need to ensure their safety and to win this war.

Equally important, we must make sure that this request does not commit the nation to going beyond the current mission in Iraq.

It is our job, as elected representatives of the people, to ensure that this spending request meets the needs of our troops overseas and our citizens here at home.

This Administration seems to be fixated on the military side of the equation at the expense of the domestic side.

Congress has urged the administration to support increased opportunities to open and expand international energy markets and export U.S. clean energy technologies to developing countries and other nations abroad.

I can assure you that I will do everything I can to see to it that this budgetary sleight-of-hand is reversed.

Mr. Secretary, you seem to be counting all coal research. Mr. Bush cited in specificity the Clean Coal program, not coal in general, he said Clean Coal. And so, there is a credibility gap.

I can assure you that's not the first time that question has been asked...

Mr. Secretary, would you provide the committee with the fossil energy budget submission that your Department presented to OMB?

What I'm trying to get at is, I'm trying to get at what you really told the Office of Management and Budget...

Mr. Secretary, 2 years ago, the administration ignored its own campaign rhetoric and proposed an 18 percent cut in funding for fossil energy research.