"Impacts are already severe in several areas of the state.
"That's the punishment, and it's already severe," he adds.
The already severe humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka is on the brink of catastrophe.
("The decision came with a price," Kantor maintains, "reinforcing the already severe isolation of the presidency").
"The sequestration of user fees exacerbates the already severe budgetary constraints on the agency".
It has also disrupted oil production, by far the government's biggest source of revenues, exacerbating already severe economic problems.
Then last week, the City Council heard a proposal to tighten an already severe law restricting smoking in restaurants.
Of that, about half will go on to Afghanistan, where there are already severe strains on the system.
In the Inland Empire, encompassing the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, the shortage of doctors is already severe.
The drought was already severe at the 2002 Olympics, where the Swiss Alpine skiers could produce just one bronze medal.
Europe has been growing only half as fast as the United States, and Japan's economy is flat, worsening the already severe American trade deficit.
