[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 28 (Thursday, February 16, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1258-S1262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Congratulating Senator Harris

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me say that that was an excellent 
presentation by Senator Harris. I can recall when she first came here, 
and I sat down with her and we talked about her predecessor and about 
how people with diverse philosophies can get along and actually love 
each other.
  I would expect the same thing to happen in this case--because it 
does. I listened to some of the things that were said by the new 
Senator from California, talking about the rule of law, about freedom 
of religion, freedom of speech, and the First Amendment. I agree. I am 
hoping that we end up with more things in common than things that would 
keep us apart because we have a lot to do. We need to get busy doing 
it. I appreciate very much hearing the opening speech by Senator 
Harris.
  Mr. President, I wanted to get to the floor because it won't be long 
until we will be voting on my Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt. 
I am looking forward to it. He and I go back a long way. I know that he 
has been through the ringer, as a lot of them have. I look

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at Jeff Sessions and some of the abusive things that were said about 
him during the time that he was going through this process. Of course, 
the same thing has been true with Scott Pruitt.
  Scott Pruitt just happens to be not only a candidate who is going to 
make an excellent Administrator of the EPA, but he is also one who 
knows the job. He has been there. He has been attorney general for 
Oklahoma, my State. He lives in my home town of Tulsa, OK. So I know 
him quite well. In fact, I am in aviation, and I remember flying him 
around the State in some areas, introducing him when he was just 
starting out in the statewide race.
  I think he is going to do a really good job. It is my understanding 
that my colleagues on the other side are determined to run the clock 
before we vote on Attorney General Pruitt, and they are using the 
opportunity to make the case that he will destroy the environment and 
return pollution to the air and water.
  Yet they know that he will do nothing of the sort. Attorney General 
Pruitt is highly qualified. Yes, it is true that he has had the 
occasion to file lawsuits on behalf of the State of Oklahoma against 
the Environmental Protection Agency. I can assure you that he knows 
that he has represented the State of Oklahoma. There are many other 
States that were doing the same thing.
  He is a believer in the rule of law and will uphold the laws as 
passed by Congress within constitutional bounds. He has built a career 
defending the law, and I see no cause for concern that he will ever 
stop. He has been practicing law in Oklahoma since 1993, when he 
graduated from law school at the University of Tulsa. In 1998, he ran 
and was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate, where he served for 6 
years. During that time in the Oklahoma State Senate, he was seen as a 
leader, someone who could be counted upon, and someone who should be in 
higher office in the State.
  Of course, that is what happened. Since 2010, he has been the 
Attorney General for Oklahoma. He became a respected defender of the 
State's role in our Federal system of government. As EPA Administrator, 
Pruitt will continue to uphold core constitutional principles and won't 
be engaged in the same Federal overreach that we have seen over the 
last 8 years.
  I know there are varying philosophies in this body. I know there are 
people who want to concentrate the power in Washington. They see 
nothing wrong with what we refer to as governmental overreach. I have 
experienced this because it happens that I was the chairman, as well as 
the ranking member, of the Environment and Public Works Committee, 
which has the jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency. So 
I have watched this take place.
  I know that there are members of the Environment and Public Works 
Committee who have differing philosophies as to what the EPA should be 
doing. They see outsiders. They see the State, sometimes, as someone 
who is opposed to the things they are trying to do. But we have watched 
this happen over the last 8 years.
  Attorney General Pruitt has said again and again that he will uphold 
the laws that we pass right here in Congress--no more and no less. So 
it is up to us as lawmakers to provide him with effective bipartisan 
legislation that will make a positive difference for the environment 
and for our future, while balancing State and private interests. This 
balance is possible and Scott Pruitt is a testament to this balance.
  Oklahoma is an energy State. Oklahoma is an agricultural State. We 
care a great deal about the land we live on and the air we breathe, and 
we want to be sure it is safe for our families and for generations to 
come. I think about the Administrator that was there during the years 
of the Obama administration, and he was actually in a hearing just a 
few hours ago. He talked about how comforting it was to come to our 
State of Oklahoma--which he did twice. He learned that landowners are 
on the side of the environment. They are the ones who want to care for 
the land. They are the ones who want to exert whatever energies are 
necessary to take care of the problems with pollution that are present 
in this world.
  As attorney general, Mr. Pruitt has worked closely with the Oklahoma 
Department of Environmental Quality and the Oklahoma Water Resources 
Board to protect Oklahoma's scenic rivers from upstream pollution. As a 
matter of fact, as to his reputation, he is ``Mr. Scenic Rivers'' back 
in Oklahoma. I don't understand how people concerned with the 
environment are opposing him and saying things about him that are 
detrimental.
  He was able to use unbiased logic and science to reach an agreement 
with the State of Arkansas to protect our water in Oklahoma. He has 
also been instrumental in negotiating a historic water settlement 
agreement. This agreement was between the State of Oklahoma, the 
Choctaw Nation, and the Chickasaw Nation.
  This thing, I say to the Presiding Officer, has been in litigation 
for 100 years. He walked in, and he resolved the problem. It was a 
battle that had gone on for 100 years. One of the chief concerns of the 
Chickasaw and the Choctaw Nations was to ensure that conservation 
guidelines were preserved. The agreement not only provides Oklahoma 
City with its long-term water needs but also protects our two Indian 
nations with their conservation goals. Again, this was tried by a lot 
of people over a period of 100 years until Scott Pruitt came along. He 
is the one who did it.
  He has sued the EPA and fought against the Fish and Wildlife Service 
at times. It has all been in Oklahoma's best interest. Now he will have 
the entire Nation's best interest in mind when making decisions as the 
EPA Administrator. I have no doubt that he will continue to protect our 
State's interests from overreach and unnecessary harmful regulations.
  It is no secret that Attorney General Pruitt's confirmation process 
has been unusually lengthy. It is time we vote to confirm him in this 
position. We had his nomination hearing in the Environment and Public 
Works Committee. That was back on January 18, almost a month ago. That 
hearing was one to be remembered because we broke a record by asking 4 
rounds of questions. I suggest that no one in this confirmation process 
this year or in the last three generations has had to undergo four 
rounds of questions.
  During the course of this day-long, 8-hour hearing, he answered more 
than 200 questions. Now, after this, he responded to more than 1,000 
questions for the record, including the extra questions Senator Carper 
asked him in a December 28 letter, as Attorney General Pruitt promised 
he would.
  Now, this means that he answered--these are questions for the 
record--1,600 questions. The average director, during confirmation over 
the last 3 Presidential years, had 200. So it is 200 questions, as 
opposed to 1,600 questions that he was subjected to. He never 
complained about it and actually did a great job.
  Now, despite the Democrats' efforts to delay his confirmation vote, 
we need to be responsible and move forward to confirm Attorney General 
Pruitt. The longer we postpone this vote, the longer it is going to 
take for things to get done at the EPA. Right now nothing can get done. 
Everyone knows that. That is wrong. I know that Attorney General Pruitt 
will continue to be a champion for economic development and 
environmental responsibility by upholding the law and restoring the 
Environmental Protection Agency to its role as a regulatory agency, not 
an activist organization.
  You know, this is all for show because everybody knows the votes are 
there. He is going to be approved. I look forward to working with him. 
I think he is ready now to move in and do the job. It is going to be a 
while before he is able to get the other positions confirmed. That is 
why it is important to go ahead and do it, and I understand we are 
going to be doing it when this time runs out.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I yield the remaining time I have to 
Senator Schumer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the 
nomination of Scott Pruitt to serve as the Administrator of the 
Environmental Protection Agency. The Environmental Protection Agency, 
or EPA, is tasked with

[[Page S1260]]

protecting human health and the environment, including our precious 
air, land, and water. This is clearly one of the most critical missions 
in the Federal Government.
  Americans believe that a great country deserves safe drinking water, 
clean air, and to know that the products we use are safe. And Americans 
care about continuing this legacy for future generations, believing 
that we should leave the environment in good shape or better than we 
found it, and that is where the EPA comes in.
  Before the Agency was created in 1970, a hodgepodge of inconsistent 
State and city regulations proved to be inadequate for protecting the 
right of Americans to have a clean, safe environment. Before the EPA, 
in some cities in this country, the air was so polluted that during the 
day, drivers could barely see the car in front of them. Studies 
indicate that the air in the 1950s in Los Angeles, as measured by 
particulate matter and ozone pollution, was worse than it is in Beijing 
today. Our rivers, including the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, caught 
fire. Schools were built on toxic chemical dumps. I know the thought of 
public health risks like these sound preposterous today, but this was 
all the case back before the EPA. It took parents and regular citizens 
standing up and demanding better to finally force action. In 1970, 
President Richard Nixon and a Democratic Congress worked in a 
bipartisan manner to create the EPA.
  Let me be clear. The EPA is not perfect. There are many instances 
when I have stood up to the Agency because I felt its actions were not 
in the best interests of Minnesotans. That said, since the creation of 
the Agency, the EPA has significantly improved our public health and 
our environment by cleaning up our air and cleaning up our water.
  We still have a lot of work left to do. Yet we are now faced with a 
President and an EPA nominee who want to gut the Agency and reverse the 
progress we have made. President Trump has repeatedly attacked 
environmental protections and the EPA. He has called to ``get rid of'' 
the Agency. And during an interview with FOX News, Candidate Trump said 
of the EPA: ``What they do is a disgrace.'' And now he is in a position 
to try to implement his stated goal of gutting the EPA--gutting the 
EPA, that is right. He wants to slash critical public health and 
environmental safeguards, and to do this, he handpicked Mr. Pruitt.
  Mr. Pruitt intends to prevent the EPA from protecting public health 
and the environment by reducing the budget by two-thirds. Trump 
transition team member Myron Ebell made these plans clear. Mr. Pruitt 
will cut and then cut some more and then cut some more, until the 
Agency we trust to keep us safe is no bigger than it was when Richard 
Nixon was President.
  So what exactly should we cut? Which aspect of public health and our 
environment is in need of less protection and research? Well, let me 
tell you about some of the things the EPA has accomplished since its 
creation.
  The EPA helps protect us from toxins. From 1948 to 1988, 30 million 
homes were treated for termite infestation with two related, very 
longlasting chemicals: heptachlor and chlordane. These chemicals are 
among the 12 worst known persistent organic pollutants--a rogues' 
gallery called the dirty dozen. A long-term study found that millions 
of Americans have these chemicals in their blood and in their fat and 
that the higher the levels, the more likely a person is to suffer from 
dementia, type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, breast 
cancer, or lymphoma.
  The problems arising from heptachlor and chlordane are still with us, 
but at least they are not getting worse. Why? Because hard work by EPA 
scientists helped expose the risks of these chemicals and led them to 
be banned in the United States in 1988. The world didn't catch up to 
the protection offered to the American people by our EPA until an 
international ban came into effect in 2001.
  The Agency also determined that lead in our paint and lead in our gas 
caused terrible public health problems, and they got the lead out. In 
the 1970s, 88 percent of American children had elevated levels of lead 
in their blood. Now the number is less than 1 percent.
  However, we know that the battle against old toxins is far from over, 
as the disastrous lead poisoning in Flint, MI, tragically reminds us. 
We also know that new risks appear every year. That is why Congress 
recently passed bipartisan legislation to allow the EPA to take action 
on the most concerning toxic chemicals, including asbestos. Slashing 
the EPA budget endangers future progress and will not make us better 
off, will not make us safer, will not make our children safer.
  The EPA has also made our air cleaner. Thanks to the EPA, we have 
reduced air pollution--like smog and ozone and particulate matter--by 
more than 70 percent since 1970, thus preventing millions of asthma 
attacks, hospital visits, lost workdays, and more than 100,000 
premature deaths every year. At the same time, the American economy has 
grown 240 percent.
  The Agency was also instrumental in the phaseout of harmful 
substances responsible for depleting the ozone layer. The ozone layer 
shields us from harmful ultraviolet radiation that leads to sunburns 
or, worse, skin cancer. Thanks to the work of the EPA and other Federal 
agencies in cooperation with the international community, ozone 
depletion has now stopped and the layer has begun to regenerate.
  The EPA has also made our water cleaner. The Agency invests billions 
in drinking and wastewater infrastructure every year through the Clean 
Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds. These funds are 
particularly important to rural communities.
  What is more, the EPA is actually saving consumers money. Take the 
fuel efficiency standards that require car companies to manufacture 
vehicles that go farther on a gallon of gas. These standards both 
reduce air pollution and save people money. Thanks in part to the EPA, 
from 1975 to 2013, the average fuel economy of a car sold in the United 
States more than doubled. Further increases in fuel economy standards 
under the Obama administration mean that if you buy a new car, you can 
expect to save an average of $7,300 on gas during the lifetime of that 
vehicle. As a whole, Americans will save $1.7 trillion at the pump.
  This is just a small subset of what the EPA has accomplished over the 
years to protect public health and the environment. And I didn't even 
mention cleaning up toxic waste sites or testing foreign products for 
lead and mercury. But if Mr. Pruitt is confirmed to lead the EPA, all 
this progress and continued work is at risk.
  As the attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt put the will of his 
corporate donors above the public interest time and time again, suing 
the Agency 18 times--suing the EPA 18 times--to block clean air and 
clean water protections. Now Mr. Pruitt wants to run the EPA, but he 
refuses to say that he will permanently recuse himself from those 
lawsuits that are still pending. Thus, he would be both the defendant 
and plaintiff in those cases. This is a bizarre world nomination. We 
cannot allow this type of conflict of interest at the EPA.
  As attorney general, he failed to take environmental protections 
seriously. He dismantled the environmental protection unit within the 
AG's office, and in particular Mr. Pruitt's record shows a disdain for 
protecting the air we breathe. He filed three lawsuits to block EPA 
health standards for smog, soot, mercury, arsenic, lead, and other air 
pollutants. His actions directly threaten those who suffer from asthma 
and other lung conditions. We can't go back to the air we had in the 
1970s. We can't afford the air Beijing has today.
  Mr. Pruitt is so ideologically driven to protect the interests of 
oil, gas, and other polluters that he even gets in the way of clean 
energy projects that would create jobs. Take for example the Plains & 
Eastern Clean Line, a high-voltage transmission project that President 
Trump has identified as an infrastructure priority. It will bring clean 
wind power from the heartland to power-hungry cities. As Oklahoma 
attorney general, Mr. Pruitt did everything he could to kill that very 
same project.
  Even more concerning to me is Mr. Pruitt's years of opposition to the 
renewable fuel standard, the RFS. This program is vital in our fight 
against dirty air, and it also greatly benefits Minnesota's rural 
economy. It is certainly better to drive our cars on

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biofuels from the Midwest than on oil from the Middle East. I know that 
Mr. Pruitt pledged during his hearing to honor the RFS, but this same 
law provides him with an important loophole: The RFS permits the head 
of the EPA to reduce the congressionally mandated levels of biofuel 
production. I, for one, do not trust an avid opponent of the RFS to now 
be responsible for its implementation.
  During the confirmation hearings, my Democratic colleagues pushed Mr. 
Pruitt on climate change. His answers were not reassuring. Unlike our 
new President, Mr. Pruitt did not call climate change a ``hoax.'' 
Instead, he was more subtle, repeatedly saying: ``The climate is 
changing, and human activity impacts are changing climate in some 
manner.'' Those words are intentionally deceptive. They are meant to 
sound reasonable but also to excuse inaction. If we look at Mr. 
Pruitt's record, it shows that he has been steadfastly against action 
on climate change, including a suit to block the first requirements for 
powerplants to reduce their carbon emissions. Let me remind you that 
these requirements are based on Supreme Court rulings from a 
conservative majority Court at that.

  In a 2007 decision, Massachusetts v. the EPA, the Supreme Court found 
that the EPA had authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean 
Air Act. It also directed the EPA to assess whether climate change 
endangers public health, which the Agency correctly determined it does. 
The Court further ruled that because of this hazard, the EPA is 
obligated to regulate greenhouse gases.
  During his hearing, Mr. Pruitt made clear that all he wants to do is 
transfer more environmental protection duties to the States, but there 
are two major problems with that. First, 50 States each implementing 
different requirements is both inefficient and likely to lead to a race 
to the bottom. There are many States that will be tempted to trade away 
the long-term public health of their citizens for the quick financial 
rewards that will come if they are able to lure businesses from other 
States with the promise of lax environmental regulations.
  All Americans deserve a clean environment. If States want to 
innovate, free them to do better than our national standards, but there 
needs to be an EPA that can make sure they don't do worse than our 
national standards.
  While my State of Minnesota has been a leader in environmental 
protection, the second problem with the State-by-State approach is that 
pollution doesn't respect State boundaries. The people of my State 
should not suffer ill effects of pollution from States upwind.
  Mr. Pruitt also implied during his hearing that the EPA's regulations 
are killing jobs, suggesting we must either choose employment and 
economic prosperity or public health and environmental protection, but 
this is a false choice. We know we can and must in fact have both. 
Addressing environmental challenges like climate change will not only 
help prevent unprecedented damage to our economy but will also spur 
economic growth and innovation.
  My home State of Minnesota has shown how we can do this. In 2007, 
under a Republican Governor, we established a renewable energy standard 
that produced 25 percent of our power from renewable sources by 2025. 
We established an energy efficiency resource standard requiring 
utilities to become a little more efficient every year. We established 
an aggressive target to reduce greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050, 
and we are national leaders in biodiesel blending requirements. These 
policies have not led to economic ruin in Minnesota. They have led to 
economic development--rural economic development--as we harvest the 
wind and Sun and convert our biomass into energy. We are investing in 
clean energy technology not only because it cleans up the air but 
because it creates thousands of jobs. In fact, a clean energy economy 
now employs more than 50,000 people in Minnesota, and it will continue 
to grow.
  In 2005, 6 percent of Minnesota's electricity came from renewable 
sources. Today it is almost 25 percent, and we continue to go higher. 
In addition to good jobs for Minnesotans, this transition brought a 17-
percent decline in power sector greenhouse gas emissions during a 
decade when the population of Minnesota increased 7 percent. It is 
clear that an EPA led by Mr. Pruitt will not move us in the direction 
Minnesota is going.
  Americans expect and deserve clean water, clean air, and a hospitable 
environment. Although EPA is far from perfect, the Agency has shown 
that a cleaner environment is compatible with economic growth. In fact, 
cleaning the environment helps drive economic growth. We cannot afford 
to entrust the EPA to Mr. Pruitt or anyone else who has a history of 
putting polluters' interests above the public's and above the economy 
as a whole. We cannot afford to entrust this Agency to someone the 
President has handpicked to slash its budget and to prevent it from 
carrying out its mission. Mr. Pruitt represents a step backward, not a 
step forward. He is maybe the last person who should be the next leader 
of the EPA. I will oppose this nomination, and I call on my colleagues 
to do the same.
  Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my postcloture debate time to 
Senator Schumer.
  But first, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blunt). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I am proud to stand today and support Scott 
Pruitt, President Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection 
Agency.
  I can think of no one who is better suited or more fully qualified to 
lead this Agency and to advance within it the reforms it so desperately 
needs. I look forward to voting to confirm Mr. Pruitt as EPA 
Administrator, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.
  In many ways, the EPA epitomizes the broken status quo in 
Washington--a status quo that is increasingly and rightfully viewed 
with suspicion and a certain amount of contempt by the American people. 
That broken and discredited status quo has been described in various 
ways: out of touch, arbitrary, inflexible, unreasonable, heavyhanded, 
unaccountable. These words could apply to any number of institutions or 
offices here in Washington, DC, but they are the hallmarks of the rule-
writing departments that make up our Federal bureaucracy.
  Technically, these bureaucratic agencies are creatures of the 
executive branch--creatures that exist to assist the President in 
fulfilling his constitutional duty to take care that the laws, written 
by the legislative branch, are to be faithfully executed. But over the 
past several decades, they have been recast as the Federal Government's 
center of gravity, both writing and enforcing and, in many cases, even 
interpreting, the vast majority of laws governing America's society and 
America's economy.
  Elevating the unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy to the driver's 
seat of the Federal Government--to the driver's seat, specifically, of 
Federal policymaking--is mostly the work of Members of Congress, of 
both Chambers and of both political parties, who understand that the 
best way to avoid being blamed by voters for unpopular laws is not to 
make them--at least not to make them completely--but rather to empower 
unelected bureaucrats to make the laws for them. But the regulatory 
agencies themselves sometimes deserve some of the blame as well.
  Congress is guilty of writing laws that are couched in vague terms, 
centered around gauzy goals, instead of strictly defined as 
understandable rules. But Federal regulators are guilty of 
interpreting--and repeatedly reinterpreting--those laws in order to 
accommodate their ever-expanding conception of their own power, of 
their own authority to work their own will on the American people.
  For instance, in the years since Congress passed the Clean Air Act 
amendments in 1977, Federal bureaucrats have used the law to enact more 
than 13,500 pages of regulations, which works out to roughly 30 pages 
of regulations for every 1 page of underlying legislative text.
  The fundamental problem with this expansion and centralization of 
regulatory authority is the tendency of

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Washington, DC, bureaucrats to be ignorant of--and often very 
indifferent to--the interests of the people who live in the various 
communities who are affected by the rules they make and the rules they 
also enforce.
  This isn't a knock on the individual men and women who work within 
the Federal bureaucracy, most of whom are well-educated, well-
intentioned, and highly specialized. But there is no doubt that a 
regulator in Washington, DC, knows a whole lot less about a melon farm 
in Emery County, UT, and cares a lot less about the fate of the people 
who work at that melon farm in Emery County, UT, than what the 
regulators say in Salt Lake City.
  The Environmental Protection Agency, in particular, is notorious for 
its top-down, Washington-knows-best approach to regulation, which often 
runs roughshod over the immense diversity of local circumstances in our 
large country.
  Too often, the EPA treats States and State regulators not as partners 
but as adversaries. It treats the States themselves not as laboratories 
of republican democracy but, rather, as lab rats to be tested upon for 
their own amusement and for the exertion of their own political power.
  Scott Pruitt understands this well because he has seen it firsthand 
as attorney general of Oklahoma. Mr. Pruitt has spent many years being 
ignored and pushed around by Washington, an experience that has taught 
him the need for the EPA to work with and not condescend to the States.
  In his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Pruitt explained why 
improving the relationship between the EPA and State-level regulators 
is the best way to protect our environment and uphold the separation of 
powers that is the cornerstone of our constitutional system. He said: 
``Cooperative Federalism is at the heart of many of the environmental 
statutes that involve the Environmental Protection Agency.''
  The reason for that is that it is the States that many times have the 
resources, the expertise, and an understanding of the unique challenges 
of protecting our environment and improving our water and our air. We 
need a true partnership between the EPA in performing its roll, along 
with the States in performing theirs. If we have that partnership, as 
opposed to punishment, as opposed to the uncertainty and duress that we 
currently see in the marketplace, I think we will have better air and 
better water quality as a result.
  For many Americans--and certainly for many of my fellow Utahns--the 
EPA is pejorative. It is synonymous with an out-of-touch and out-of-
control government.
  This is a shame. Americans want--and Americans certainly deserve--
clean air and clean water. The EPA has the potential to help them 
achieve these goals, but only if the EPA itself returns to its core 
mission and works well, works wisely to accomplish that mission, and 
works within our constitutional system.
  That is why I am so pleased that Scott Pruitt is on his way to lead 
the EPA. The Agency exists to protect the American people, not advance 
the narrow agenda of some special interests while punishing others.
  I am confident that Mr. Pruitt is the right man for the job and that 
he will remain independent while correcting the troubling course that 
the EPA has taken in recent decades.
  I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.