Robert C. Byrd

Senator Byrd makes a good point. We will try to get our national labs focused on this challenge.

Obviously, the importance of fossil fuels to our national and economic security cannot be overstated.

Much of the $1.7 billion appropriated to the Energy Department through the Interior bill is directed towards research and development activities.

52 percent of the electricity generated in this country comes from a coal-fired power plant, and close to 100 percent of our transportation comes from oil and natural gas.

These programs, particularly the fossil energy programs, are the linchpin to ensuring our Nation's energy security.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today so that the members of this subcommittee have an opportunity to review and discuss the administration's fiscal year 2004 budget request.

So Senator Mikulski, you are exactly right. I believe the folks in the Lone Star State have helped us return this particular case.

This culture of subsidization to the medical schools simply has to stop.

I find it completely unacceptable to have doctors who are being paid by the VA with veteran dollars, taxpayer dollars who are not doing the work that they are being paid to do.

I am saying that is the difference, $9 billion. That is all that is holding us from going forward. Yet Mr. Lawrence Lindsey, the President's economic adviser, says with respect to what the anticipated cost of the war in Iraq will be----

The Senate looks bad enough as it is, without being in session on the Sabbath. We ought to get out and go to church on Sunday.

Massive legislative proposals such as this one always, in my experience around here, always attract too much baggage. And the longer we are on the floor, the more excess baggage it attracts.

The American people think we are talking about fairness, cost containment, basic coverage for all, simplicity, and reducing deficits when we advocate health care reform.

Under the guise of reform, we cannot, we must not, try to address every issue that can be lumped under the loose category of health care. We simply cannot do it.

It is essential that we not enact a plan that squanders our last real remaining chance for significant deficit reduction.

The most basic lesson that history teaches is that unless each generation is initiated into the truths that every past generation has learned, a civilization cannot expect to survive. Our schools are the kilns of our future. The hour is…

In this legislation, in large measure, we are struggling for America's future. We are struggling in the hope that America will, indeed, have a future.

We have come to a sad state of affairs when metal detectors have to be installed at the schoolhouse door. Let us end this climate of violence in our schools by ending the tolerance for lawbreaking students.

We face enormous problems, especially in our large cities where we are rapidly developing a permanent underclass.

We cannot place an additional burden of tens of thousands of new immigrants, with no jobs skills and no ability to support themselves, onto the backs of the already overly burdened American taxpayers.

The United States simply does not have the resources to help all those around the world who wish to come here for a better life. We do not have the resources to eliminate poverty and unemployment for our own population, much less the rest…

We must not forget the roots from which this priceless jewel, the Constitution of the United States, came.

In my discussions concerning the history of the Romans last year, we found that when the Roman Senate gave up its power over the purse-and it had complete control over the purse-when it gave up that power over the purse to the dictators…

When the Roman Senate gave away its power over the purse to the dictators and to the emperors, it gave away its power to check the executive. Therefore, we should be instructed by these histories-the history of the Romans and the history…

I do not go around calling myself an Anglo-American. I think there are too many of these hyphenated Americans. We are all Americans.