Sometimes we pay too much attention in Washington to public relations, as opposed to the substance.

I always wondered what hearing one's own obituary might sound like, and I sort of feel like I may have just heard part of it at least.

The federal government neither has the power to site transmission lines, nor do we build them. That's done, as people know, in their own communities. The siting decisions and the permitting is done at the local level, or by state governments if it's interstate in nature. And federal government - this is one area we have no authority.

There was a Republican majority of the Senate, and it tempered the nature of the nominations being made.