Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this hearing, which was called 'Creating a Culture of Compliance.' That's what we're trying to do.

I have to agree with what I've heard here. I would mention that, in the Budget Committee last week, the Administration plan to defund the VPP program was unanimously rejected.

I thank Senator Rockefeller for all of the action that he helped us to take 4 years ago with the Miner Act.

It's very frustrating, for those of us who worked so hard on the MINER Act, to hear accounts of MSHA's activity at this mine.

If we drop that, how much of the extra resources are we going to need just to take care of the ones that we're going to be neglecting, who does do a good job.

I suspect that the thousands of people that we'd have to hire in order to have a shorter period of time than that would create quite an economic burden in this country.

Perhaps out of the tragic accidents that have taken the lives of 29 men in West Virginia, 7 in Senator Murray's home State of Washington and left 11 missing off the coast of Louisiana, we can build a new commitment to keeping workplaces…

Thank you, Senator Harkin, for holding this roundtable as part of our series of hearings on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Second, how will any proposed changes effect or impact schools and school districts in rural areas?

I have two key questions in mind. First, what can we do to fix the current version of ESEA--commonly known as the No Child Left Behind Act?

All of these new taxes will drive up the cost of health care in this country and result in higher insurance premiums.

Unfortunately, just weeks ago, Congress passed and the President signed a massive new law that will impose unjustified premium increases on millions of Americans.