I have no problems with private schools. I graduated from one and so did my mother. Private schools are useful and we often use public funds to pay for their infrastructures and other common needs.

The President's call for more math and science students is not being heeded by his party's leaders in Congress. They are cutting over $10 billion from student aide while refusing to fully fund No Child Left Behind. Something doesn't add up.

Democrats believe we must have comprehensive health care reform that includes giving the federal government authority to negotiate lower prices with drug companies.

In particular, the emerging call from our nation's evangelicals to protect God's creation is substantial.

For example, in my district there are visitors from all over the world who are drawn to our beautiful beaches, recreational lakes, habitat wildlife preserves and golf courses.

We need the humbleness and clarity to see that our food, while benefitting from technological advances, has benefitted even more from free ecological resources: Cheap energy, lots of water everywhere, and a stable climate.

Forest restoration is a challenging and complex undertaking of raising young trees, transplanting them, and then cultivating them year in, year out in the face of harsh challenges of nature; it is a gigantic nature transformation project to turn all the mountains of the country into 'treasure mountains,' into 'gold mountains.'

As species are exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.