[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 28 (Thursday, February 16, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1229-S1230]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 10 
minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to the vote on the motion to 
invoke cloture on the Pruitt nomination.
  Who yields time?
  The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President and colleagues, if I could have your 
attention, please. Five minutes please. Two years ago, the Center for 
Media and Democracy filed a petition under Oklahoma FOIA law called the 
Oklahoma Open Records Act. For 2 years, the appeal of that petition was 
blocked. Earlier this year, a lawsuit was brought to require the 
release of thousands of emails from the AG's office in Oklahoma with 
the fossil fuel industry, oil companies, coal companies, and the like. 
Six hours from right now, an expedited hearing will take place in the 
district court of Oklahoma.
  Earlier this week, nine members of the Environment and Public Works 
Committee wrote and asked the judge who is going to preside over that 
hearing today to move forward expeditiously, and she is. We also wrote 
and asked the majority leader to delay the vote on cloture for Scott 
Pruitt until a week from Monday. He has declined.
  Thomas Jefferson used to say: If the people know the truth, they will 
not make a mistake. Colleagues, we need to know the truth. Speaking of 
the truth, there is an old saying that says: People may not believe 
what we say. They will believe what we do.
  As a candidate, as nominee, and President-elect, Donald Trump has 
made clear his job, his goal is to degrade and to destroy the 
Environmental Protection Agency. Like a lot of things he says, we 
asked: Did he mean it? With the nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the 
EPA, it is clear he did.
  In Mr. Pruitt, Trump has found someone who, as AG of the State of 
Oklahoma, shut down your environmental protection unit in that office. 
He went on to raise millions of dollars for fossil fuel industries and 
other sources used to sue the Environmental Protection Agency because 
of their efforts to reduce methane emissions, their efforts to stop 
cross-border pollution, their efforts to cut methane emissions, their 
efforts to fight smog, haze, and ozone. Under Attorney General Pruitt's 
stewardship in Oklahoma, child asthma is well above the national 
average. Fish advisories in lakes in Oklahoma have more than doubled. 
All 16 counties in Oklahoma that are evaluated by the American Lung 
Association for clean air received an F last year--every one of them. 
Earthquakes have risen over the last dozen years in Oklahoma, from one 
or two per year to one or two per day. That is only the earthquakes 
that exceed 3.0 on the Richter scale.
  When we asked Scott Pruitt today to name one battle he had led to 
reduce pollution in his State, he cited the issue involving the 
Illinois River, which we later learned was actually much more the work 
of his predecessor than it was his. When I asked him to name one 
environmental rule and regulation that he supported, he declined to do 
so. We are coming off of yet another hottest year on record. They are 
experiencing monsoon-like rains in California this month after years of 
drought. Temperatures in Alaska are so warm, we are not sure some years 
that they are going to actually have the Iditarod dog race, sea levels 
are rising from New England to Miami, there is a huge crack in the ice 
in Antarctica, and Scott Pruitt raises questions about the validity of 
the science around climate change. In last year's election, a lot of 
people said: We want to take our country back. To what? The Cuyahoga 
River which caught on fire; the L.A. smog that was so bad, when I ran 
it hurt my lungs.
  Some say: Is it possible to have clean air and clean water with a 
strong environment? That is nonsense. We can have both. Since Richard 
Nixon signed into law creating the EPA, guess what. GDP in this country 
has grown by 200 percent or more. Since losing 5 million jobs in the 
great recession, we added 16 million jobs, the unemployment rate is 
down by half.
  We still have work to do, my friends. There are communities in the 
United States where water is unsafe to drink. There are millions of 
kids and grandkids who have asthma. We have fish advisories that abound 
from sea to shining sea. The sea level is rising up and down the east 
coast. State Route 1 in my State, our major highway, was shut down 
again last week, not because of a huge storm but just because of sea 
level rise.
  Let me close by saying that when our grandchildren ask us years from 
now what we did about it, I want to tell them we did the right thing. 
We did not back down. We stood our ground. We voted to face this 
challenge to our people and to the planet, and to overcome those 
challenges.

[[Page S1230]]

  Please, join us in voting no on the motion to invoke cloture.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending 
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Scott Pruitt, of Oklahoma, to be Administrator of the 
     Environmental Protection Agency.
         Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Mike Rounds, Tim Scott, 
           Johnny Isakson, Lindsey Graham, James M. Inhofe, David 
           Perdue, Shelley Moore Capito, Roger F. Wicker, Orrin G. 
           Hatch, Mike Crapo, James E. Risch, James Lankford, John 
           Hoeven, John Thune, Deb Fischer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Scott Pruitt, of Oklahoma, to be Administrator of the 
Environmental Protection Agency shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 54, nays 46, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 69 Ex.]

                                YEAS--54

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Shelby
     Strange
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--46

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 54, the nays are 
46.
  The motion is agreed to.

                          ____________________