We are spending $1 billion a week in Iraq.

But like the rest of the country, Maine has reached an impasse, for most of the mercury that fouls our skies, waters and land comes from outside our borders.

The offshore ocean area under U.S. jurisdiction is larger than our land mass, and teems with plant and animal life, mineral resources, commerce, trade, and energy sources.

Winter in Maine is a time of alternating rest and frenzied activity.

Mercury pollution from power plants is a national problem that requires a national response.

Through their work with fetal tissue, researchers hope to find ways to harness embryonic stem cells which have the ability to become any type of human cell and could provide new treatments for many illnesses.

I am confident that the British people will not be intimidated by terrorism.

Energy conservation is the foundation of energy independence.

Health care costs blunt the competitive edge of American entrepreneurs, from the auto industry to internet start-ups.

Maine's long and cold winters may help keep our State's population low, but our harsh climate also accounts for what is unique and valuable about our land and our people.

Stem cell research holds out the promise of finding cures and treatments for a wide range of diseases.

We are spending $1 billion a week in Iraq.

The argument on the other side of special rights is completely bogus. It's bogus because you could make exactly the same claim about racial or ethnic or religious minorities.

In 1995, sanctions led Sudan to cut its ties with terrorists and expel Osama bin Laden.

To do what we are doing in this budget to our children, cutting their health care funds, decreasing opportunity, simply so we can pay for tax cuts and a war in Iraq is beyond belief, and we need to reverse it.

By giving every American access to quality, affordable health care, they will create a more competitive, a stronger and more secure America!

Despite the increase in world attention toward Sudan in the past months, the genocide in Darfur has continued without any serious attempt by the Sudanese government to do what governments primarily exist to do, protect their citizens.

If the parties get too close together they lose their identities, if they get too far apart you're not going to get a whole lot done because you almost always need to have some folks on the other side of the aisle to accomplish anything.

The mercury rule writers also ignored mercury's special qualities.

The Republicans in the House and the Bush administration are bankrupting this country.

I think we have a moral obligation to our children that can be easily summarized: number one, protect them from harm.

Yet, much of what lies beneath the ocean's surface remains a mystery, and our nation continues to rely on a confused, antiquated system of ocean governance.

I support exemptions from the estate tax to ensure that when Maine farm owners die, their families will be able to continue to farm the land that they have protected and lived on, often for generations.

While I relish our warm months, winter forms our character and brings out our best.

Family farms and small businesses are the backbone of our communities.

President Bush's mercury rule is a gift to the big energy companies that helped put him in office.

Under current federal policy on human embryonic stem cell research, only those stem cell lines derived before August 9, 2001 are eligible for federally funded research.

What our Republican friends are doing, if we look at what they do and not what they say, they have decided that the most important thing in this country is to increase payments for interest on the national debt.

They don't have special rights because we have civil rights laws that protect them. The laws work both ways.

In this part of the world, only Maine gives winter the welcome and the worship it should have.

I do not believe that Congress or the Administration should prohibit the medical community from pursuing a promising avenue of research that may improve the lives of millions of Americans.

These kids understood what is not immediately obvious; that they were going to pay the bills for tax cuts that had been passed today or in the last 4 years, and for the war in Iraq, because essentially we are borrowing money to do those things.

Winter forms our character and brings out our best.

We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.

Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon.

The situation in Iraq will be long, it will be expensive and it will be difficult. But in the end, Iraq will very much be worth it.

It's true that the war in Iraq opened a distance in relations between part of Europe and the U.S. government, but our basic ties are stronger than that. We share democracy, free markets and a commitment to Western security. We differ on how to guarantee that security.

It was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

Further, Japan is the second largest donor in Iraq after the United States, with over $5 billion dollars for humanitarian, infrastructure and reconstruction projects.

Iraq's elite Republican Guard is doing so badly they're changing their name to the Democratic Guard.

And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn't buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals.

Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples.

This will be Iraq for all without discrimination among Iraqi citizens, or ethnic or sectarian discrimination.

The Bush administration also was not straightforward about the intelligence it had, releasing tenuous information that fit its goal of attacking Iraq. I feel deceived.

We ought to recognize that we have an offensive responsibility to take the war to the terrorists where they are. That responsibility has waned in the last year as military and intelligence resources were withdrawn from Afghanistan and Pakistan to be used in Iraq.