Sci-Tech Today covered Tuesday's hearings on Capitol Hill in which EPA Director Stephen Johnson was asked to put forth a timetable to begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions:
[...] Johnson reiterated President Bush has acknowledged concern about climate change and provided a long list of actions he said the administration is taking to deal with the issue, short of regulating greenhouse gases.
"What is the most serious environmental hazard that we face," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked, seeking an acknowledgment of risks of climate change.
"I don't see one being most serious," replied Johnson, a career scientist at the EPA before being named administrator in early 2005.
Whitehouse asked the question again. And Johnson again wouldn't be pinned down.
"You astonish me," Whitehouse snapped. [full text]
I like how a word such as "astonished" can have so much impact, depending on the context.