I've always been a strong supporter of environmental protection and initiatives in that area. But I'm willing to set priorities. If we have to make reductions in one place we'll have to-in order to increase another place I'm willing to do that.

We don't have to sacrifice a strong economy for a healthy environment.

The Endangered Species Act is the strongest and most effective tool we have to repair the environmental harm that is causing a species to decline.

My mother was the influence in my life. She was strong she had great faith in the ultimate triumph of justice and hard work. She believed passionately in education.

You look at public education system charter schools infrastructure in so many ways New Orleans has come back stronger.

My advantage as a woman and a human being has been in having a mother who believed strongly in women's education. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford and her own mother was a doctor.

But the thing I felt most strongly about and put at the end of one of the prison diaries was education.

Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.

Strong advocacy for education health care and worker safety will be indispensable if they are to get their fair share of President Bush's austere budget for the next fiscal year.

A black agenda is jobs jobs jobs quality education investment in infrastructure and strong democratic regulation of corporations. The black agenda at its best looks at America from the vantage point of the least of these and asks what's best for all.