[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 28 (Thursday, February 16, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1268-S1275]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Tribute to Bryan Berky
Mr. President, I would like to take a quick moment just to be able to
reflect. I have a staff member named Bryan Berky. He is running off. He
has been quite a leader. He is leaving us to be able to take on a new
task and a new role.
Since 2010, he has been a tremendous asset to the Senate. Bryan Berky
is a student of Senate procedures. He is the one in the office whom
everyone wishes they had because, when something comes up and someone
has some novel new idea of how the rules work, he is typically the one
on the corner saying: Yes, that really won't work, and here is why.
He has been sharp on budget issues, on tax issues, and efficiency in
government. He has been the one who has been passionate about the
national debt--and not just talking about national debt but actually
trying to solve it.
You see, Bryan Berky is one of those unique staffers not trying to
make a
[[Page S1269]]
point. He is trying to actually solve the problem.
He was mentored by a guy named Dr. Tom Coburn, who wasn't too bad on
those issues himself. He has led well, and I am proud that he has been
on my staff.
As he leaves from the Senate, he will be sorely missed by this whole
body--even by people who never met him. He had an impact, based on the
things that he worked on.
If you want to get a chance to visit with Bryan Berky, though, you
can talk about Senate procedures, tax policy, and nerdy budget issues
or you can chat with him about Oklahoma State football. He spent his
time through college working for the Oklahoma State football team,
watching the films and breaking down every single play, preparing the
team for practice and for the game days.
He is a great student of people and of process.
I just want to be able to pass on to the Presiding Officer that there
is a guy named Bryan Berky who is leaving the Senate in the next week,
and he will be sorely missed by this Senate and by our team in the days
ahead.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, last year was the hottest year on record,
and 16 of the last 17 years have been the warmest years ever recorded.
Climate change science is some of the most thoroughly established and
well-tested research in history, and 97 percent of the published
research says climate change is real and caused by humans.
Climate change is an urgent threat to our health, our national
security, and our economy. How we address it is what we need to debate,
not whether it is real.
As I have said before, I will work with anyone in this Chamber--
Republican or Democrat--to address this issue. That is appropriate
because survey after survey of people in Colorado--a State that is a
third Democratic, a third Republican, and a third Independent--
demonstrates that they believe the science, no matter which party they
belong to.
In a very welcome sign, just last week, a group of statesmen,
including former Secretary of State James Baker III, former Secretary
of State George Shultz, and former Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Paulson, Jr.,--all Republicans--released what they described as a
``conservative climate solution.''
These distinguished leaders have come together at just the right
moment--at the perfect moment--because our new President says that he
is ``not a big believer'' in climate change. In fact, he claimed during
the campaign that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese to
make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.
Consistent with that view, the President's nominee to run the
Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, recently said that the
debate over climate change is quote ``far from settled.'' He wondered
in December whether global warming is ``true or not,'' whether it is
caused by humans and whether the Earth is cooling instead of heating.
As attorney general of Oklahoma, he sought to prevent the very Agency
he has been nominated to lead from fighting climate change, suing the
EPA 14 times.
It is important, I guess, to note that while it is rare for somebody
in America to share these views, Attorney General Pruitt is not alone
in his extreme views in the new President's Cabinet. Rick Perry, the
nominee to be Secretary of Energy, wrote in his book that climate
science is ``all one contrived phony mess'' and that the Earth is
actually ``experiencing a cooling trend.'' Ben Carson, the nominee to
run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said: ``It is not
clear if temperatures are going up or going down.'' Rex Tillerson, the
new Secretary of State, said: ``None of the models agree on how climate
change works.'' Mr. Trump's CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, said: ``There
are scientists who think lots of different things about climate
change.''
When the Pope was talking about the importance of addressing climate
change, which he said was a very real threat, there was an American
politician who said that the Pope should stick to religion and that he
wasn't a scientist. In fact, the Pope studied chemistry. I am glad he
is using his voice on this important issue.
To be clear, some nominees seem to have undergone a confirmation
process evolution on climate, but this seems more an effort to hide
their extreme views in an effort to be confirmed rather than a genuine
conversion based on facts or science, and that is a shame because the
world cannot wait for this administration to stop ignoring the science.
Over the past 150 years, human activity has driven up greenhouse gas
levels in our atmosphere higher and faster than at any time over the
last 400,000 years. That is not surprising because we have pumped
almost 400 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the
start of the Industrial Revolution. As a result, carbon dioxide
concentrations have risen from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per
million for the first time in recorded history. That significant change
over an insignificant period of time is dramatically changing the
Earth. These emissions act like closed car windows: They allow light
and heat in, but they don't allow most of the heat to ever escape.
Already, record heating has melted ice sheets as large as Texas,
Georgia, and New York combined, adding billions of tons of water to our
oceans every year. These rising seas have partially submerged cities in
Florida and Georgia several times per year. They threaten 31 towns and
cities in Alaska with imminent destruction. They are forcing a city in
Louisiana to relocate its residents away from what is now an almost
permanently flooded coast. By 2030, there won't be any glaciers left in
Montana's Glacier National Park.
While extreme events and natural disasters become more frequent, so
do the effects climate change has on our daily lives. In my home State,
7 out of 10 Coloradans know that climate change is happening, and
nearly half say they have personally experienced its effects. Shorter
winters are already a threat to Colorado's $4.8 billion ski and
snowboard industry and its 46,000 jobs.
Since the snow is melting sooner, there is not enough water for what
are now longer summers. Colorado's farmers are forced to grow food with
less water, a changing growing season, and higher temperatures. Our
agriculture industry employs over 170,000 Coloradans and contributes
more than $40 billion a year to our economy. These changes are not only
threatening farmers' livelihoods, they are changing production and food
prices at grocery stores.
Our beer industry is even weighing in. This week, I received a letter
from 32 brewers from around the country, including three from Colorado,
who oppose Scott Pruitt's nomination because they depend on America's
clean water resources to brew their beer.
Hotter summers and the droughts they prolong cause wildfires that now
burn twice as much land every year than they did 40 years ago.
Together, State and Federal agencies are paying nearly $4 billion a
year to fight those fires. Warmer waters and drought are hurting
animals everywhere, like our cutthroat trout populations in Colorado.
That is not just a problem for the fish; in Colorado, rivers generate
more than $9 billion in economic activity every year, including
supporting nearly 80,000 jobs.
As warmer temperatures increase and spread across regions, so do
incidents of vector-borne diseases like the West Nile virus and the
hantavirus. And what do we do when we have longer, hotter summers? We
crank up the air-conditioning, burning more fossil fuel and only
perpetuating the problem.
I understand that sometimes it is hard to focus on climate change
when the effects seem distant, but it should be impossible to ignore
the immediate national security threat posed by climate change that is
here today. Here in the Senate, in 2015, we passed a budget amendment
with bipartisan support to promote ``national security by addressing
human-induced climate change.'' That is what the amendment said. It got
bipartisan support.
The former Secretary of Defense, the former Director of National
Intelligence, and the former admiral in charge of U.S. Naval forces in
the Pacific have all warned us that climate change is a threat to our
national security.
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Around the world, climate change is increasing natural disasters,
refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water,
complicating American involvement and security. Climate change is
linked to drought and crop loss and failure in southern Africa, leaving
more than 6 million children malnourished by famine. It is increasing
monsoons and heat waves in Pakistan, driving 11 million people out of
their homes. It is even connected to water and food shortages that have
intensified civil unrest from Egypt to Syria.
At home, climate change already has cost us billions to relocate and
buffer military infrastructure from coastal erosion and protect
military installations from energy outages. At the U.S. Atlantic Fleet
in Norfolk, VA, the largest naval installation in the world, sea levels
have risen over 1 foot in the past 100 years. All the systems that
support military readiness, from electrical utilities to housing at
that base, are vulnerable to extreme flooding.
When the Department of Defense ``recognizes the reality of climate
change''--those are their words--``and the significant risk it poses to
U.S. interests globally,'' we should listen. When the Nation's most
recent national security strategy says that ``climate change is an
urgent and growing threat,'' we should act.
As a Senator from Colorado, I understand very well why people
sometimes are frustrated when the EPA, for instance, does take action--
or sometimes when it doesn't take action.
There are certainly some regulations that don't make sense, where a
well-intentioned idea or an ill-intentioned idea--I think they are
usually well-intentioned--from Washington ends up not making sense when
it hits the ground. That is why I fought to revise EPA fuel storage
tank regulations that hurt Colorado farmers, ranchers, and businesses
in my home State. I supported an amendment making the Agency take a
look at a new regulation that burdens families trying to remodel older
homes. There are other regulations that I voted to get rid of. I
supported, for instance, lifting the export ban on crude oil from the
United States of America, a bill that we passed last year in connection
with a 5-year extension of the tax credits for wind and solar energy, a
great deal for the State of Colorado--both the lifting of the crude oil
export ban and the extension of the tax credits for wind and solar.
I have also supported and fought for our coal community. In Colorado,
working with my colleague Senator Gardner, I fought to keep a Colorado
mine open to protect good-paying jobs in my State. I am proud to have a
hard hat in my office bearing the signatures of the people who work at
that mine.
I have to say tonight that the often-asserted claim that efforts to
regulate carbon or more generally to protect our water and our air have
significantly led to job losses in this country is false. This argument
is a fraud perpetrated by politicians making promises that are broken
from the start.
The reality--and it is important to understand the reality so we can
remedy the situation--the reality is that free market forces and not
mostly Federal regulation are transforming American electricity
production.
American coal employment peaked in the early 1980s, long before we
began seriously expanding natural energy. Natural gas has been gaining
market share compared to coal since before 1990. Colorado, for example,
has benefitted greatly from the natural gas boom. In almost every part
of the United States, natural gas plants are now cheaper to build than
coal plants. Facilities that were built when I became a Senator 8 years
ago were built to import natural gas and are now being retrofitted to
export natural gas to the rest of the world. That is good for our
environment, and it is good for the geopolitical position of the United
States.
Innovation is making renewable electricity more affordable for
everybody. Between 2008 and 2015, the cost of wind power fell 41
percent. The cost of large-scale solar installations fell 64 percent.
This has led to a 95-percent increase in solar deployment in 2016 over
the previous year. The annual installation doubled in 1 year.
If we truly want to support our world communities, we should listen
to Teddy Roosevelt, who once said that ``conservation and rural-life
policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at the
bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor
nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is
steadily given to the future.''
The truth about the future is that there may be a lot of sound
reasons to review, revisit, and even retire any number of Federal
regulations, and I will bet there are, but cutting regulation will not
reopen shuttered coal mines.
It is not about regulations or the EPA or about a War on Coal.
Economic factors, market factors are driving the shift from coal to
natural gas and renewables, and we need to recognize this shift and
help coal communities adapt to a changing energy economy. They have
contributed to building the economic vitality of this country. Their
work helped us win World War II. We have to recognize the contribution;
we can't just turn our backs. But we also need to acknowledge what is
causing the changes that are occurring in our energy production because
if we can't acknowledge the causes, we can't fix the problem; we can't
make a meaningful difference for people in the communities that are
affected by these changes; we can't fulfill what have become empty
political promises instead of making real commitments on behalf of the
American people.
We also have to take advantage of the changes in energy production to
fuel economic growth and create new jobs. Already, renewable energy is
creating jobs throughout the country. Energy efficiency employs 2.2
million Americans. Solar and wind companies employ more than 360,000
Americans, including more than 13,000 in my home State of Colorado.
Colorado now ranks first in the country in wind energy manufacturing.
All together, clean energy employment grew 29 percent between 2009 and
2014 in Colorado.
This isn't a Bolshevik plot, as I said on the floor before. These are
American jobs. These are manufacturing jobs. These are plants where it
is not just about the wind turbine but about all of the supply chain
that goes along with it that can't be made in China and shipped to the
United States and installed here. These jobs in this supply chain are
American jobs. They are good jobs that pay a good wage, and they are
meaningful to our economy. Last year, solar jobs grew 17 times faster
than jobs in the rest of the national economy. They increased by 20
percent in Colorado in 1 year.
The expansion of natural gas, as I mentioned earlier, is also aiding
our transition to a cleaner energy economy. Between 2005 and 2012,
natural gas production grew by 35 percent in the United States. In
Colorado, it expanded by 139 percent. Colorado now ranks sixth in the
country in natural gas production as 10 of the Nation's 100 largest
natural gasfields are now located in Colorado.
These industries together create good-paying jobs that can't be
exported overseas; and all of these changes, taken together, are
beginning to address climate change. From 2008 to 2015, the American
energy sector reduced its carbon emissions by 9.5 percent. We reduced
our carbon emissions by almost 10 percent while the country's economy
grew by more than 10 percent, and we are starting to see the same trend
around the world. Global emissions stayed flat in 2015 while the global
economy grew. Turning our backs on reality is not a recipe for job
creation in this country, but embracing the reality is.
So I would ask this new President, after the campaign he ran and the
promises he made, why he would promote policies that will kill American
jobs and industries. Unfortunately--I regret to say this--even though
70 percent of Coloradoans say climate change is real and that humankind
is contributing to it, the answer to my question about this
administration's policies comes back to what it believes--to what it
believes is a debate on climate change.
If we allow science to become debatable, we can contort our thinking
to fit any fiction at all to support or undermine any public policy. We
risk discarding facts we don't like and ignoring experts with whom we
don't agree in favor of special interests, which
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often dominate our political system. Our country needs more from us
than that. Our national defense demands more than that from us.
When State Department analysts concluded with evidence, with science,
that the Keystone Pipeline would not materially increase carbon
emissions--facts lost in the phony debate here in Washington--I voted
for it against intense opposition from my own party and many of my
strongest supporters. That was a painful vote, one of the most painful
I have ever taken and difficult to explain to many people I admire, but
I was guided by the facts, not by politics, guided by the science, not
by politics.
We have always drawn strength as a country from our belief in
science, our confidence in reason and evidence. It is what Harry Truman
called our ``unflinching passion for knowledge and truth.'' In school,
we teach children to support theories with facts and look to science to
explain the world. When it comes to climate change, we cannot allow the
narrow limits of political expediency and special interests to cloud
our sound judgment. That is not a lesson we should be teaching our
children who need us to act on climate. That would set a horrible
example for the people who are coming after us.
Our ultimate success in addressing climate change will rely on the
same scientific method that sent us to the Moon and eradicated
smallpox. If we surrender evidence to ideology, when it comes to
climate change, we abandon the process of scientific inquiry. We leave
ourselves completely unequipped to defend what we discover to be true.
We loosen our grip on the science that allows us to understand that
evolution is real and vaccines are effective; that something is true
and something else is false. That, not doubt and denial, is the lesson
we should leave our children; that we have the courage to confront this
challenge without bias; that we have the wisdom to follow facts
wherever they lead. That is what this Senate should do. That is what
our country should do.
We have seen the evidence now. It is not theoretical anymore that we
can grow our economy, the fact that we will grow our economy, that we
can conserve energy while we do it, that we can create entirely new
industries and technologies to power the most significant economy that
human beings have ever seen in the history of the world, and that we
can deal with climate at the same time. The two are linked.
Apparently, that is not what this President believes, and that is not
what his nominee to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency believes. Because that is so far out of step with what Colorado
believes and for all of the reasons I have talked about today and for
the sake of our climate and for good-paying American jobs all over this
country--but particularly in Colorado--I am compelled to vote no on the
President's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong opposition to
President Trump's nomination of Scott Pruitt to be the next
Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
The reason is simple. In a choice between corporate polluters and
people who want to breathe air and drink water, Scott Pruitt sides with
the corporate polluters. He has no business being the head of the EPA.
During his nomination hearing, Mr. Pruitt had countless opportunities
to answer for his record. His responses were flippant, evasive, and
outright misleading. He has been asked repeatedly to provide records
from his office concerning dealings with big oil companies, but he told
the Senators that, hey, they should submit an open records request,
hoping that his confirmation would be over long before those documents
would see the light of day.
Just a few hours ago, an Oklahoma district court judge ordered a dose
of sunshine for Mr. Pruitt's dirty dealings from his perch as attorney
general of Oklahoma. The judge has demanded that Mr. Pruitt cough up
more than thousands of emails pertaining to his cozy relationship with
Big Oil--emails he has been hiding from Oklahoma open records requests
for over 2 years, but the Republican leadership is not interested in
waiting. Its plan is to jam this nomination through tomorrow--4 days
before the emails are slated to become public.
Are you kidding me?
If those emails show corruption, every Senator should have that
information before--not after--they vote to put someone in charge of
the EPA who may be there for years.
Clean air and clean water used to be a nonpartisan issue. In earlier
decades, leaders in both parties had the courage to say no to
suffocating smog and towering plumes of toxic chemicals poisoning our
children. Republicans and Democrats came together, and together they
declared that access to clean air and clean water was a basic right for
all Americans. We passed the Clean Air Act, and we passed the Clean
Water Act. We updated those laws when necessary, and we did those
things together.
Together, we depend on the Environmental Protection Agency for three
critical reasons: The EPA is the cop on the beat, protecting American
families from corporate polluters that would put profit ahead of
safety. It watches out for us and for our children; the EPA exists
because pollution knows no State borders. What is burned at the
powerplant in Ohio is breathed by children across Massachusetts; and
the EPA takes on the ever-changing task of researching, monitoring, and
regulating toxic emissions because the job is far too great for any one
State to tackle.
To do all of this, the EPA routinely turns to local governments,
businesses, and innovative workers for local solutions; the EPA turned
to the University of Massachusetts to create a research center to
assist smalltown water systems; the EPA turned to towns along Cape Cod
and on Martha's Vineyard to pursue innovative solutions to increase
coastal resiliency as sea levels have risen; and the EPA recently
recognized New Bedford's exceptional work in monitoring industrial
waste discharge in the city's collection system.
Across Massachusetts and across the Nation, the EPA sets big national
goals that help inspire ingenious local solutions. The EPA is one of
our great successes as a nation, but that success has not come without
a fight. Each time the EPA has taken a step to clean our air, industry
has poured more and more money into the debate, yelling that regulation
is just too costly and that companies can never survive if they have to
clean up their act.
In the 40 years following the Clean Air Act, emissions of common air
pollutants fell nearly 70 percent while the number of private sector
jobs doubled. Industry talks about the costs of pollution controls
because dirty is cheap. Clean air saves more than 160,000 lives each
year. Clean air saves more than 3 million schooldays our children would
have collectively lost. Clean air saves 13 million workdays the hard-
working, healthy Americans simply can't afford to miss.
Scott Pruitt doesn't measure success by this yardstick. No. He
measures success by how happy his corporate donors are. As Big Oil's
go-to attorney general from Oklahoma, Pruitt has spent the last 6 years
trying to silence the lifesaving, data-driven work of dedicated EPA
employees and scientists. And now, those big polluters have their
fantasy EPA nominee--someone who will work on their side and not on the
side of the American people.
How about a couple of examples. When EPA issued a rule to limit
mercury, arsenic, and other toxic chemical emissions from coal
powerplants, Mr. Pruitt questioned whether mercury poses a health
hazard. Mercury is a well-known neurotoxin. It means that it poisons
the nervous system. And Scott Pruitt thinks he should question whether
it poses any health hazard. Wow.
Or maybe it is this example. When the EPA moved to reduce leaks of
methane, a greenhouse gas that is 30 times more potent than
CO2, he turned the Oklahoma AG's office into a clearinghouse
for big oil to pursue lawsuits attacking the EPA. Scott Pruitt has
spent so much time with his campaign donors that he honestly appears
incapable of understanding the difference between the financial
interests of millionaires who run giant oil companies and the health
and well-being of the 4
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million human beings who actually live in Oklahoma.
The people need a voice more than ever. For generations, Oklahoma has
had very few earthquakes. Then, oil companies decided to up production,
to pull every last drop of oil out of the ground. But with every drop
of oil came useless, toxic radioactive salt water waste, and it has to
go somewhere. So they took the cheapest option available: Pump billions
of barrels of wastewater deep underground, under immense pressure, and
that is when the problems started. Suddenly, earthquakes--big
earthquakes with a magnitude of 3.0 and above, started occurring every
day across Oklahoma.
Here was Mr. Pruitt, the State attorney general, the people's lawyer.
What did he do? Did he seek relief for the families that were stiffed
by insurance companies? Did he join residents who were suing to stop
the drilling while their homes crumbled? Did he even pretend to do
something--you know, like maybe issue a strongly worded press release
supporting frightened citizens? No, not Mr. Pruitt. No, Mr. Pruitt
stood by his friends in the oil industry, and the heck with everybody
else.
Mr. Pruitt has been consistent in his work for big oil. As attorney
general, he dismantled the environmental protection unit in his
office--dismantled the environmental protection unit. He appointed a
billionaire oil man to be his 2014 campaign chair, and he ignored the
citizens he was sworn to protect. That is the measure of Mr. Pruitt as
a public servant.
A State attorney general is supposed to serve the people. Right now,
Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey is leading the case to
prove that ExxonMobil deliberately deceived the public about the impact
of climate change on our economy, our environment, our health, and our
future. Good for Maura. Did Scott Pruitt join that suit? Of course not.
Pruitt ran to the defense of one of the world's largest corporations,
whining about how that corporation felt bullied. Instead of working as
the attorney general for Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt has served as the
attorney general for Exxon.
Finally, Scott Pruitt has the nerve to say that the cause of climate
change is ``subject to more debate.'' More debate? We had that debate
in the 1980s, in the 1990s, in the 2000s. Maybe Mr. Pruitt missed it,
buried under a pile of big oil money.
So let me just offer a summary. For well over a century, we spewed
fossil fuel filth into our atmosphere. And, yes, this allowed us to
fuel the thirsty appetite of our 20th century economy. But that
blistering pace came at a price.
Our planet is getting hotter. Our coasts are threatened by furious
storm surges that sweep away homes and devastate our largest cities.
Our poorest neighborhoods are one bad storm away from being under
water. Our naval bases are under attack--not by enemy ships but by
rising seas; droughts and wildfires are all too familiar across the
country. Refugees are fleeing homes that are no longer livable. And the
risk of rapidly spreading diseases like malaria and Zika is on the
rise.
Our coastal communities don't have time for politicians who deny
science. Our farmers don't have time for more debate. Our children
don't have time for more cowards who will not stand up to big oil
companies defrauding the American people.
Scott Pruitt has been working hard for big oil to dismantle the EPA,
and now, President Trump wants to give him that chance.
Where are the Senators who will stand up for the health, the welfare,
and the safety of their citizens? Where are the Senators who will stand
up for the people's right to breathe clean air and drink clean water?
Where are the Senators who will have the courage to demand action on
climate change so that our children will have a chance to inherent a
livable Earth?
In the end, despite this despicable record, if the Republicans link
arms again, there will not be enough of us to stop this nomination. But
make no mistake, if President Trump wants a fight over the health of
our children, a fight over the creation of clean energy jobs, a fight
over the very future of our planet, then we will fight every step of
the way.
We will fight alongside moms and dads who know the terror of a
childhood asthma attack. We will fight alongside the cancer victims. We
will fight alongside the fishermen and the hunters. We will fight
alongside the families of Flint, MI, and everywhere else in America
where families cannot safely turn on their water taps or step outside
and take a deep breath.
We are all in this together.
People in Massachusetts care deeply about preserving a safe and
healthy environment for our kids and our grandkids. We see it as a
moral question. And I receive letters from people all across the State,
describing how important clean air and clean water are to them and how
worried they are about what Scott Pruitt leading the EPA will mean for
our most vital natural resources. I hear those concerns and I share
those concerns.
I would like to read just a few of the many letters that I have
received about this nomination.
Edward from Dennis wrote to me on behalf of the Association to
Preserve Cape Cod about the importance of the EPA to coastal
communities in Massachusetts. Here is Edward's letter:
The Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC), the Cape Cod
region's leading nonprofit environmental education and
advocacy organization, writes to state our strong opposition
to the appointment of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt
for the position of Administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency. We urge you to vote against his
nomination.
APCC is deeply concerned that Mr. Pruitt's record of
vigorously opposing the efforts of the EPA to protect the
nation's water and air quality is in direct conflict with his
responsibilities as EPA Administrator to ensure that the
agency's important work continues. In fact, his record
clearly shows that his loyalties side with polluters
instead of with the environment and the welfare of the
American people. Of particular concern is Mr. Pruitt's
refusal to accept the science of climate change and the
implications this has for EPA's ongoing efforts to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, the EPA has most recently played a vital role
in furthering efforts to protect and restore water quality
through its Southeast New England Program (SNEP) for
Watershed Restoration, a program that has greatly benefited
coastal communities in Rhode Island and southeastern
Massachusetts. We worry that important initiatives such as
the SNEP program, which was originally proposed by Senator
Reed with the strong support from each of you, will be in
jeopardy under the oversight of Mr. Pruitt, should he be
confirmed as EPA Administrator.
The New England states, as well as the entire nation, have
made significant strides forward in addressing the protection
of our air and water. However, much more needs to be
accomplished. With so much at stake, we cannot afford to step
backward in our effort to protect the environment. We,
therefore, urge you to oppose the nomination of Mr. Pruitt
for EPA Administrator.
Thanks, Edward, for writing, and thanks to all of you at the
Association to Preserve Cape Cod for the work you are doing every
single day. It makes a real difference.
While all sorts of people have written to my office about Mr. Pruitt,
I have noticed that a lot of people are writing in about kids--their
kids, kids they work with, or just kids in general. My constituents are
concerned about Scott Pruitt's commitment to protecting the air our
kids breathe and the water they drink, and I share those concerns.
I heard from Mary in Worcester, who is concerned about the effects of
environmental toxins like lead on children. She is concerned both as a
parent and as a family doctor. Here is what Mary had to say:
With so much focus in Washington on ensuring politicians
are held to a strong ethical standard, I ask you to oppose
the nomination of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator. I wrote
to you yesterday asking the same, but after the hearing
yesterday, it is increasingly clear that Mr. Pruitt is unfit.
In addition to being a parent, I am also a Family Medicine
physician. Rarely, I see children who are exposed to lead
through environmental sources. This is rare because lead has
been regulated, and as such rates of lead poisoning, and the
accompanying irreversible brain damage, have plummeted.
But yesterday Mr. Pruitt revealed that he knows nothing
about this issue, responding to Senator Cardin, ``Senator,
that is something I have not reviewed nor know about.''
I continue to ask you to oppose him and to encourage
colleagues to do the same.
Thank you for writing, Mary. That is why I am here tonight--to
encourage my colleagues to oppose him.
I heard from Elizabeth in Belchertown, as well. Here is what she
wrote:
As a resident of MA and a teacher of AP Environmental
Science in a public high
[[Page S1273]]
school in western MA, I am writing to express my concern
about the appointment of Scott Pruitt as director of the EPA.
He appears to be the exact opposite of the qualifications and
perspective of a person who should have that position. As you
know, he has close ties to fossil fuels, has repeatedly sued
the EPA, avoided mercury legislation, and espoused the belief
that the EPA is too powerful. I urge you to work with other
Senators to block this appointment.
Thank you, Elizabeth. The work that you are doing, that teachers are
doing, is more vital than ever now, and I share your concerns. Thank
you.
A man from Boston wrote to me with concerns about Scott Pruitt's ties
to fossil fuel companies, and here is what he said:
As a constituent who cares about our environment, I want
you to know I am deeply concerned about the nomination of
Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Scott Pruitt is firmly in the pocket of the oil and gas
industry. He is not concerned with the world we leave for our
children. As a father and an educator, I am fighting his
nomination because I have a responsibility to care about the
world I leave children and not merely the wealth my cronies
accumulate.
Pruitt has actively worked to dismantle protections for
clean air and clean water that people and birds need to
thrive. The EPA must adhere to science and support common-
sense solutions for ensuring a healthy environment and stable
climate for people and wildlife.
Please oppose confirming Scott Pruitt and demand a nominee
instead who will represent the vast majority of Americans--
regardless of party affiliation--who support strong action
and safeguards for our air, water, and climate.
I couldn't agree more with what he said.
Wendy from Newton wrote to me about the concerns as well. Here is
what she had to say:
Dear Senator, I am appalled and scared by the possibility
of Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. It will be disgraceful if he
is confirmed. To appoint someone who stands against
everything that agency is for is cynical, disrespectful and
dangerous in this urgent time of climate change. Now more
than ever we need a strong EPA that believes in science and
will protect us from environmental disaster. I hope you will
do everything you possibly can to fight against Pruitt
getting confirmed.
Thank you for writing.
I also heard from Arlene in Wayland, who is worried about what the
future of the EPA means for her two grandchildren. Here is what she had
to say:
Senator Warren, please assure your constituents that you
will not support Scott Pruitt's nomination to head the EPA.
Mr. Pruitt is an enemy of the agency and of the future of our
environment. He has stood in the way of the agency's purpose
to protect our air and water. He is ignorant of the findings
of climate science and medical studies on toxicity, has dealt
dishonestly with Congress, and is so obviously in the pocket
of the fossil fuel industry. Please use your considerable
persuasiveness and rigor to convince your colleagues in the
Senate to ditch his nomination. The future of my two
grandchildren depends on it. Thank you.
Thank you for your note, Arlene. I am doing my best, and so are the
rest of the Democrats. We just need some Republicans to help us out
here.
Joan from Maynard reached out to me about her experience working with
children who have suffered from lead poisoning. Here is what Joan
wrote:
I have been an Educational Advocate for children with
disabilities for 24 years. I've worked with children who
suffer from lead poisoning, and they are heartbreaking. Even
the smallest exposure has life-long profound consequences. I
haven't personally seen anything the level of what has
happened in Flint, MI, but I know that it's a tragedy for a
generation of children in Flint.
Pollution of our waters is just one of the risks we face if
Scott Pruitt is approved. There are countless more, many
evident and others not readily apparent, but ready to unfold.
Please, please fight this appointment in every way you can.
Thank you, Joan, for writing and for the important work you do.
Believe me, I am fighting in every way I can.
A man from North Falmouth wrote to me, worried that the progress we
have made on protecting public health and the future of our planet is
in danger. Here is what he said:
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is a lifelong ally
of corporate polluters. Pruitt's nomination is a clear threat
to the nation's public health and the progress made on
common-sense pollution standards. I cannot tolerate the
appointment of a fossil fuel cheerleader to lead the nation's
environmental protection efforts. In 2014, Pruitt literally
acted as a messenger between Devon Energy and the EPA in an
attempt to stifle public health protections.
Please continue to defend the Clean Power Plan and methane
pollution standards against the influence of the fossil fuel
industry. 64% of Americans are concerned about climate
change, we deserve a leader who will take action to protect
air quality.
Thanks for writing. I really appreciate it.
Since President Trump nominated Mr. Pruitt, I have received hundreds
of letters like these from people in Massachusetts who are worried
about what he will mean for the environment and for the future of our
planet, but I have also heard from the experts, people who understand
the ins and outs of the EPA and its mission. Hundreds of former EPA
employees who have serious concerns about Mr. Pruitt's record on the
environment sent a letter to me and my colleagues here in the Senate.
Here is what they wrote:
We write as former employees of the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to share our concerns about Oklahoma
Attorney General Scott Pruitt's qualifications to serve as
the next EPA Administrator in light of his record in
Oklahoma. Our perspective is not partisan. Having served
under both Republican and Democratic presidents, we recognize
each new Administration's right to pursue different policies
within the parameters of existing law and to ask Congress to
change the laws that protect public health and the
environment as it sees fit.
However, every EPA Administrator has a fundamental
obligation to act in the public's interest based on current
law and the best available science. Mr. Pruitt's record
raises serious concerns about whose interests he has served
to date and whether he agrees with the longstanding tenets of
U.S. environmental law.
Our nation has made tremendous progress in ensuring that
every American has clean air to breathe, clean water to drink
and uncontaminated land on which to live, work and play.
Anyone who visits Beijing is reminded of what some cities in
the U.S. once looked like before we went to work as a people
to combat pollution. Much of the EPA's work involves
preserving those gains, which should not be taken for
granted. There are also emerging new threats as well as
serious gaps in our environmental safety net, as the
drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, painfully
demonstrates.
Our environmental laws are based on a partnership that
requires EPA to set national standards and give states
latitude when implementing them so long as certain minimum
criteria are satisfied. This approach recognizes that
Americans have an equal right to clean air and water, no
matter where they live, and allows states to compete for
business without having to sacrifice public health or
environmental quality.
Our environmental laws include provisions directing EPA to
allow for a ``margin of safety'' when assessing risks, which
is intended to limit exposure to pollutants when it is
reasonable to expect they may harm the public health, even
when all the scientific evidence is not yet in. For example,
EPA's first Administrator, Bill Ruckelshaus, chose to limit
the amount of lead in gasoline before all doubt about its
harmfulness to public health was erased. His actions spared
much of the harm that some countries still face as a result
of the devastating effects of lead on human health.
Similarly, early action to reduce exposure to fine particle
pollution helped avoid thousands of premature deaths from
heart and lung disease. The magnitude and severity of those
risks did not become apparent until much later.
Mr. Pruitt's record and public statements strongly suggest
that he does not share the vision or agree with the
underlying principles of our environmental statutes. Mr.
Pruitt has shown no interest in enforcing those laws, a
critically important function for EPA. While serving as
Oklahoma's top law enforcement officer, Mr. Pruitt issued
more than 50 press releases celebrating lawsuits to overturn
EPA standards to limit mercury emissions from power plants,
reduce smog levels in cities and regional haze in parks,
clean up the Chesapeake Bay and control greenhouse emissions.
In contrast, none of Mr. Pruitt's many press releases refer
to any action he has taken to enforce environmental laws or
to actually reduce pollution. This track record likely
reflects his disturbing decision to close the environmental
enforcement unit in his office while establishing a new
litigation team to challenge EPA and other federal agencies.
He has claimed credit for an agreement to protect the
Illinois River that did little more than confirm phosphorus
limits established much earlier, while delaying their
enforcement another three years.
In a similar vein, Mr. Pruitt has gone to disturbing
lengths to advance the views and interests of business. For
example, he signed and sent a letter as Oklahoma Attorney
General criticizing EPA estimates of emissions from oil and
gas wells, without disclosing that it had been drafted in its
entirety by Devon Energy. He filed suit on behalf of Oklahoma
to block a California law requiring humane treatment of
poultry. The federal court dismissed the case after finding
that the lawsuit was brought not to benefit the citizens of
Oklahoma but a handful of large egg producers perfectly
capable of representing their own interests. To mount his
challenge to EPA's rules to reduce carbon pollution from
power plants, he took the unusual step of accepting free help
from a private law firm. In contrast, there is little or
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no evidence of Mr. Pruitt taking initiative to protect and
advance public health and environmental protection in his
state.
Mr. Pruitt's office has apparently acknowledged 3,000
emails and other documents reflecting communications with
certain oil and gas companies, but has yet to make any of
these available in response to a Freedom of Information Act
request filed more than two years ago.
Contrary to the cooperative federalism that he promotes,
Mr. Pruitt has suggested that EPA should refrain from trying
to control pollution that crosses state lines. For example,
he intervened to support a Farm Bureau lawsuit that would
have overturned a cooperative agreement between five states
and EPA to clean up the Chesapeake Bay (the court rejected
the challenge). When asked how a state can protect its
citizens from pollution that originates outside its borders,
Mr. Pruitt said in his Senate testimony that states should
resolve these disputes on their own, with EPA providing
``informational'' support once an agreement is reached. But
the 1972 Clean Water Act directs EPA to review state water
quality plans, require any improvements needed to make waters
``fishable and swimmable,'' and to review and approve plans
to limit pollutant loads to protect water quality. EPA's
power to set standards and limit pollution that crosses state
lines is exactly what ensures every American clean air and
water, and gives states the incentive to negotiate and
resolve transboundary disputes.
We are most concerned about Mr. Pruitt's reluctance to
accept and to act on the strong scientific consensus on
climate change and act accordingly. Our country's own
National Research Council, the principal operating arm of the
National Academies of Science and Engineering, concluded in a
2010 report requested by Congress that human activity is
altering the climate to an extent that poses grave risks to
Americans' health and welfare. More recent scientific data
and analyses have only confirmed the Council's conclusion
and added to the urgency of addressing the problem.
Despite this and other authoritative warnings about the
dangers of climate change, Mr. Pruitt persists in pointing to
uncertainty about the precise extent of humanity's
contribution to the problem as a basis for resisting taking
any regulatory action to help solve it. At his Senate
confirmation hearing, he stated that ``science tells us that
the climate is changing, and that human activity in some
manner impacts that change. The ability to measure with
precision the degree and extent of that impact, and what to
do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue,
and well it should be.'' This is a familiar dodge--
emphasizing uncertainty about the precise amount of
humanity's contribution while ignoring the broad scientific
consensus that human activities are largely responsible for
dangerous warming of our planet and that action is urgently
needed before it is too late.
Mr. Pruitt's indulgence in this dodge raises the
fundamental question of whether he agrees with the
precautionary principle reflected in our nation's
environmental statutes. Faithful execution of our
environmental laws requires effectively combating climate
change to minimize its potentially catastrophic impacts
before it is too late.
The American people have been served by EPA Administrators,
Republicans and Democrats, who have embraced their
responsibility to protect public health and the environment.
Different administrators have come to different conclusions
about how best to apply the law in view of the science, and
many of their decisions have been challenged in court,
sometimes successfully, for either going too far or not far
enough. But in the large majority of cases it was evident to
us that they put the public's welfare ahead of private
interests. Scott Pruitt has not demonstrated this same
commitment.
Thank you for considering our views.
Thank you to all who signed that letter and for the incredibly
important work that you have done to protect our environment. I am with
you all the way.
Next, I wish to read an article published by The Atlantic that uses
Scott Pruitt's actions to critique his appointment to head the EPA.
Actions speak volumes louder than words, and his tell a pretty
compelling story of exactly how he will lead the Agency. Here is what
it says:
While broad strokes of Trump's policies were never in
doubt, there was often enough bizarreness to wonder what he
would do with the powers of the Environmental Protection
Agency.
On Wednesday, those questions were all but settled. Trump
has chosen E. Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma,
to lead the EPA. . . .
In a certain light, Pruitt is an inspired choice to lead
the EPA, as he has made fighting the agency a hallmark of his
career. His own website calls him ``a leading advocate
against the EPA's activist agenda.'' The significance could
not be more clear: As he promised on the trail, Trump will
likely use the powers of the presidency and the legal
expertise of Pruitt to block or weaken the Obama
administration's attempts to fight climate change.
And Trump will be able to try for more than that. For what
distinguishes Pruitt's career is not just his opposition to
using regulations to tackle climate change, but his
opposition to using regulation to tackle any environmental
problem at all. Since he was elected Oklahoma's attorney
general, in 2010, Pruitt has racked up a sizable record--
impressive in its number of lawsuits if not in its number of
victories--of suing the EPA.
Many of these suits did not target climate-related
policies. Instead, they singled out anti-pollution measures,
initiated under presidential administrations, that tend to be
popular with the public.
In 2014, for instance, Pruitt sued to block the EPA's
Regional Haze Rule. The rule is built on a 15-year old
program meant to ensure that air around national parks is
especially clear. Pruitt lost his case.
Last year, he sued to block a rule restricting how much
mercury could be emitted into the air by coal plants. He lost
that, too.
And early in his tenure, he sued to keep the EPA from
settling lawsuits brought by environmental groups like the
Sierra Club. That one was dismissed.
He has brought other suits against EPA anti-pollution
programs--like one against new rules meant to reduce the
amount of ozone in the air--that haven't been heard in court
yet. While ozone is beneficial to humans high in the
atmosphere, it can be intensely damaging when it accumulates
at ground level, worsening asthma and inducing premature
deaths. The American Lung Association calls it ``one of the
most dangerous'' pollutants in the United States.
All this is not to say that Pruitt has omitted climate
regulations from his litigation. His most common target has
been the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration's set of
Clean Air Act rules meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
from power plants. The Clean Power Plan is Obama's main
mechanism for pushing the United States to meet its pledge
under the Paris Agreement.
Pruitt began suing the EPA to block the Clean Power Plan
more than two years ago. Now, Oklahoma is one of the 28
states challenging the agency in court, and it helped succeed
in getting the Supreme Court to block the rules in February.
But Pruitt's understanding of the bill seems not entirely
legally minded in two significant ways. First, Pruitt's
knowledge of global warming appears to be lacking, at best.
Earlier this year, for instance, he wrote in the National
Review that ``scientists continue to disagree about the
degree and the extent of global warming and its connection to
the actions of mankind.''
While this sounds reasonable, it is not true. The
overwhelming consensus among scientists who study the Earth
is that humans are largely to blame for the planet's warming.
Climate scientists understood this to be the case since at
least the early 1990s, and since then, scholarly consensus on
the issue has only strengthened. The majority of scientists
also believe that global warming will be quite harmful; the
scientific debate about its ``degree and extent'' is only
about how bad it will be and how soon its consequences will
kick in.
Second, Pruitt has worked extremely closely with oil and
gas companies in opposing the plan. In one case, a New York
Times investigation revealed that Pruitt sent an official
letter to the EPA, bearing his signature and letterhead, that
had been almost completely written by lawyers at Devon
Energy, a major oil and gas company. It was delivered to
Pruitt's office by Devon's chief lobbyist.
Energy firms and lobbyists, including Devon, have donated
generously to the Republican Attorneys General Association,
which Pruitt has led. In interviews after the Times report,
Pruitt described the collaboration as a kind of constituent
service, saying that Devon is based in Oklahoma City. He
agreed with the letter's legal reasoning, he said, so he
signed it.
``I don't think there is anything secretive in what we've
done,'' Pruitt told The Oklahoman. ``We've been very open
about the efforts of my office in responding to federal
overreach.''
Now Pruitt could be the one doing the federal reaching.
Environmental groups immediately condemned Trump's selection
of him. ``The EPA plays an absolutely vital role in enforcing
long-standing policies that protect the health and safety of
Americans, based on the best available science,'' said Ken
Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a
statement. ``Pruitt has a clear record of hostility to the
EPA's mission, and he is a completely inappropriate choice to
lead it.''
Once, it had seemed like perhaps Trump--who speaks often of
his adoration for clean air and clean water--would bypass
those old fights and only target Obama's new climate rules.
But with Pruitt leading his EPA, it seems that Trump's
administration will act like its GOP predecessors. Whether it
is successful depends on the Senate, on the courts, and on
how well environmental advocates make their case to the
public.
Finally, I wish to share a few excerpts from an in-depth New York
Times article that uncovered Scott Pruitt's extensive ties to energy
companies. The article clearly explains the massive conflicts of
interest that Mr. Pruitt would face as Administrator of the EPA. Here
is what it says:
The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from
Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt
accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating
the amount of air pollution
[[Page S1275]]
caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in
his state.
But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page
letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of
Oklahoma's biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered
to him by Devon's chief of lobbying.
``Outstanding!'' William F. Whitsitt, who at the time
directed the government relations at the company, said in a
note to Mr. Pruitt's office. The attorney general's staff had
taken Devon's draft, copied it onto state government
stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to
Washington with the attorney general's signature. ``The
timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday
with both the E.P.A. and the White House.''
Mr. Whitsitt then added, ``Please pass along Devon's thanks
to Attorney General Pruitt.''
The email exchange from October 2011, obtained through an
open-records request, offers a hint of the unprecedented,
secretive alliance that Mr. Pruitt and other Republican
attorneys general have formed with some of the nation's top
energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory
agenda, an investigation by the New York Times has found.
Out of public view, corporate representatives and attorneys
general are coordinating legal strategy and other efforts to
fight federal regulations, according to a review of thousands
of emails and court documents and dozens of interviews.
For Mr. Pruitt, the benefits have been clear. Lobbyists and
company officials have been notably solicitous, helping him
raise his profile as president for two years of the
Republican Attorneys General Association, a post he used to
help start what he and his allies called the Rule of Law
Campaign, which was intended to push back against Washington.
``We are living in the midst of a constitutional crisis,''
Mr. Pruitt told energy industry lobbyists and conservative
state legislators at a conference in Dallas in July, after
being welcomed with a standing ovation. ``The trajectory of
our nation is at risk and at stake as we respond to what is
going on.''
Mr. Pruitt has responded aggressively and with a lot of
helping hands. Energy industry lobbyists drafted letters for
him to send to the EPA, the Interior Department, the
Office of Management and Budget, and even President Obama,
the Times found.
Industries that he regulates have joined him as plaintiffs
in court challenges, a departure from the usual role of a
state attorney general, who traditionally sues companies to
force compliance with state law.
Energy industry lobbyists have also distributed draft
legislation to attorneys general and asked them to help push
it through state legislatures to give the attorneys general
clearer authority to challenge the Obama regulatory agenda,
the documents show. And it is an emerging practice that
several attorneys general say threatens the integrity of the
office.
The message is clear across Massachusetts and across the Nation: Big
Oil's go-to attorney general is Scott Pruitt, and he has no business
running the EPA. He has proven over and over again that he will put
short-term industry profits ahead of the health of our children. This
nominee has no interest in protecting every American's right to breathe
clean air and drink clean water. We cannot put someone so opposed to
the goals of the EPA in charge of that very Agency.
For these reasons, I will be voting no on Scott Pruitt. I urge my
colleagues to do the same.
I yield the floor.
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