But obviously, we can’t afford to make some bad long-term decisions with regard to basic commitments our country has – trade those away for some short-term assistance that may or may not be there a month from now.

In the end, we may be hurting the very people we should be concerned about – the inner-city poor, those who already have to live with many risks in their daily lives, those who do not have clout here in Washington.

Clearly, the Chinese know that we want a good relationship with them.

And when we draw lines in the sand with regard to certain basic things that are vital to our interest and to the interest of democracy and our friends around the world, we have to be willing to back that up.

China is one of the world’s greatest proliferators of weapons of mass destruction to these rogue nations.

For a long time in American history, people didn’t even come up before the Senate. They didn’t come before the Judiciary Committee, and up until about 1923, something like that.

Let’s not overlook, though, what we do know about the campaign finance scandal, and the fact the Chinese were involved in our presidential campaign and our congressional campaigns.

But obviously, we can’t afford to make some bad long-term decisions with regard to basic commitments our country has – trade those away for some short-term assistance that may or may not be there a month from now.

So if you look back over the long history of China, they’ve never tried to take over the world, but they’ve been quite aggressive in their own neighborhood… in carrying out their own purposes and interests in their sphere of the world.

Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists.

We also have to ask if we focusing on the most important priorities.

Nobody wants to open a business near a Superfund site and risk being sued.

But if the Chinese mainland, the PRC, attacked Taiwan, we’d be obligated to come to their aid.

There are some hopeful signs coming out of China in the statements they’ve made since the since September 11.

We just ask the agency to make reasonable and honest decisions, and the public deserves no less.

For example, lead paint in old houses can be a greater threat to children’s health than lead that may be under some industrial site where there are no children.

Hopefully, we can build bridges, but we also have to draw lines.

The problem is that agencies sometimes lose sight of common sense as they create regulations.

So China will be having to make some choices as to whose side it wants to be on. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a major improvement in our relationship with them, if they choose correctly.

And I believe in the 13 years Judge Roberts was there, he never turned down a request to give some assistance on a pro-bono case, and this was no different.

We’ve made some mistakes in this country in times past – the Korean conflict proceeding that, some say proceeding the Persian Gulf War, where we were ambiguous as to what we would do.

You can’t substitute promise after promise with known violators of prior promises at the expense of protecting ourselves or setting an example.

And it’s difficult for the average American to understand why something like that could be so important and why a little small place like Taiwan would be so important to the PRC.

Sometimes you have to, as I say, build bridges where you can – but draw lines where you must.

We have some real political differences among us, but we all share the same goals: clean air and water, injury free workplaces, safe transportation systems, to name a few of the good things that can come from regulation.

I think that there is a relatively small number of people who are pushing for independence in Taiwan.

Superfund was passed with the good intention of cleaning up America’s toxic waste sites.

We’re hoping for the best, but we need to prepare for the worst.

I think that the justices were totally answering the way that they should. I think that the senators, as best I could tell, for the most part, Democrat and Republican, respected that.

That is, while we believe that cost-benefit analysis is an important tool to inform agency decision making, the results of the cost-benefit analysis do not trump existing law.

While we believe there are fruitful opportunities to update and improve old rules, we do not want to set up a review process that could create a litigation morass.

There’s a lot more to competence than a law degree and a modicum of courtroom skill.