[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 34 (Monday, February 27, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1422-S1424]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Nomination of Rick Perry

  There is one other nomination I would like to mention today, and that 
is the nomination of Gov. Rick Perry to be Secretary of Energy. Once 
again, we have a nominee who is totally qualified to lead the 
Department. Democrats have no real objection to the candidate. They 
just want to delay. We need to have an Energy Secretary in place as 
soon as possible. Again, this was the nominee who drew bipartisan 
praise in his confirmation hearings. For his nomination, again, there 
was a bipartisan vote in the committee--a strong vote of 16 to 7.
  Senator Joe Manchin, a member of the Democratic leadership, actually 
introduced Governor Perry at the hearing. He said that Rick Perry is 
``uniquely qualified to hold this position.'' Senator Manchin praised 
the nominee's ability to work across the aisle to get things done. That 
is important. It is important in a Cabinet Secretary, and it is 
important for all of us here in the Senate. I appreciate Senator 
Manchin and the other Democrats who reached across the aisle and have 
supported Rick Perry's nomination. They are willing to put aside the 
petty calls for gridlock that some of the other Members of their party 
have been making.
  I mention the importance of having a responsible all-of-the-above 
energy policy. This includes energy sources such as liquefied natural 
gas. The problem right now is that the Energy Department has a very 
large backlog of permits to export this gas. These are permits where 
all of the environmental reviews have already been completed. Still, 
permits haven't been issued. The Energy Department has just been 
sitting on the permits. Bipartisan majorities in Congress have said 
that we need to speed up this permitting process. It is time for us to 
have a new Energy Secretary in office today to start tackling this 
backlog. That is something we need this Department to do. There is no 
need or reason for delay.
  Governor Perry knows how to get this Department focused, how to get 
it moving, and how to make sure it is doing its job. There are 
reasonable and responsible Democrats here in the Senate who agree that 
doing the job is more important than just trying to run

[[Page S1423]]

out the clock. Governor Perry and Congressman Zinke have been nominated 
to do important jobs for the American people. They are qualified. They 
are ready. We need them in office to do these jobs now. There is 
bipartisan support. We need to vote not some day in the future; we need 
to vote now.
  The President deserves to have his Cabinet. He needs them in place. 
It is regrettable that a group of Democrats have decided to stand in 
the way of what is best for the American people--deliberate 
obstruction.
  So I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop the 
charade and stop the delays. It is time for us to vote on these 
nominations.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose President Trump's 
nomination of Wilbur Ross for Secretary of Commerce. Mr. Ross is a Wall 
Street billionaire with a long history of profiting from the suffering 
of others. He also has shady ties to Vladimir Putin's Russia. That is 
just his record. Because of that record, I do not have confidence that 
he will protect the interests of the American people as Secretary of 
Commerce.
  This administration's disturbing ties to Russia have been all over 
the news. Here is what has been publicly reported as of today.
  Our intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian Government 
conducted a successful series of cyber attacks against the United 
States designed to help Donald Trump get elected President. Our 
intelligence agencies are actively examining a dossier alleging that 
the Russian Government has collected compromising information on 
President Trump, and numerous press reports indicate that investigators 
have already corroborated some of that dossier's contents.
  The President's National Security Advisor resigned in disgrace and is 
the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation for his 
conversations with the Russian Government before the inauguration, 
conversations that may have been illegal and conversations that he has 
apparently lied about in public.
  Knowingly or unknowingly, the Vice President of the United States has 
repeated these lies on national television. According to CNN, high-
level advisers close to then-Presidential nominee Donald Trump were in 
constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to U.S. 
intelligence.
  CNN confirmed the New York Times' original investigation with 
``multiple current and former intelligence law enforcement and 
administration officials.'' Our allies documented regular calls between 
the Trump campaign and the Russians, confirming the reports of U.S. 
intelligence agencies. According to reports published in Newsweek, 
``the British government obtained information that people acting on 
behalf of Russia were in contact with members of the Trump campaign.''
  Many news outlets have reported on U.S. intelligence worries that 
NATO allies will no longer share sensitive information because they 
fear the new administration could share it with Russia. When asked 
about the regular points of contact between Russian intelligence 
operatives and his most senior campaign staff, President Trump refused 
to take the question seriously. He claimed the multiple reports of 
staff communications with Russian were ``fake news.''
  Behind the scenes, Trump's chief of staff was pressuring the FBI to 
help cover up the links between Russia and the Trump campaign. We are 1 
month into the Trump Presidency. I wish this were not happening. I wish 
things were normal, but this is not normal. It is shameful if we ignore 
all of it as we evaluate the President's nominees to critical foreign 
policy and national security jobs.
  In this context, Mr. Ross's connections to Russia raise dangerous 
issues. We know that Ross installed a former KGB official and close 
associate of Vladimir Putin as the vice chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, 
a bank that Mr. Ross controlled and a bank that was flooded with 
Russian money. Now, how closely connected was this former KGB official 
to Vladimir Putin? Here is one hint. He was so closely connected to 
Putin that he was given a $100 million payout by a Russian-controlled 
mining company as a golden parachute. He wasn't even the only Putin pal 
on Mr. Ross's board. That is right. Mr. Ross wanted the bank he 
controlled to have multiple board members from Putin's inner circle.
  Mr. Ross surrounds himself with Russian oligarchs, and he has 
invested financially in their success. As he explained during his 
testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, Mr. Ross has no 
intention of divesting from Diamond Shipping, a company that operates 
33 oil tankers and jointly charters with even more. So a man who 
personally selected multiple Vladimir Putin associates to serve with 
him on the board of the bank he controls has been totally open about 
his plan to continue profiting from oil tankers shuttling over $1 
billion worth of crude oil through international waters while serving 
as Commerce Secretary.
  It is not just one shipping company. Mr. Ross is retaining his 
investments in 11--11 separate entities, mostly private companies 
registered in the Cayman Islands. Among his retained interests, the 
state-owned China Investment Company will be one of Mr. Ross's largest 
fellow investors.
  We have never seen a Cabinet like this in history. Like many of 
President Trump's other nominees and like President Trump himself, this 
nominee seems to see his time in public service as a chance to increase 
his own wealth. In other words, on any given deal, he might be working 
for the American people or he might just be working for himself. We 
will have no way to know.
  President Trump has apparently asked Mr. Ross to lead American trade 
policy. He claims to want aggressive enforcement of antidumping and 
currency manipulation rules, which sounds great, but when Ross actually 
has this job, is he really going to be thinking about American workers 
or will he be thinking about how to make his KGB buddy from the Bank of 
Cyprus just a little richer or will he be thinking about how to help 
out his own oil tankers circling the globe or will he be thinking about 
his offshore companies and his coinvestors from China or will he be 
thinking about the next billion dollars he plans to make?
  The American people should not be left guessing about who Mr. Ross 
will be working to protect. There is significant reason to believe the 
President of the United States has substantial financial ties with 
Russia, but nobody actually knows any of the details because he has 
failed to reveal his tax returns.
  Now President Trump expects the Senate to rubberstamp his nomination 
of a top banker to Vladimir Putin's buddies to run the Commerce 
Department of the United States. This is dangerous and I will vote no. 
Mr. Ross's financial ties with Russians and his worldwide business 
deals are not the only problem with this nomination. He is practically 
a cartoon stereotype of a Wall Street fat cat with no interest in 
anyone but himself. Ross ran a secret club of top Wall Street tycoons 
called Kappa Beta Phi. I am not making this up. It is actually true.
  So he runs this secret club, which apparently gathers every year to 
get drunk and entertain themselves by putting on off-color skits that 
make fun of the millions of Americans they have swindled over the 
years. That certainly reflects Mr. Ross's world view. This is a man who 
made a fortune from the housing crisis at the expense of working 
families. After buying the servicing rights to over $100 billion in 
subprime loans, Mr. Ross swiftly got to work cheating borrowers out of 
their homes.
  Here are just a few of the examples of Mr. Ross's approach to 
business: lying to borrowers about loan modifications; charging 
borrowers fees that were not authorized; taking payments from 
borrowers, then not applying those payments to their loans; forcing 
homeowners insurance on borrowers who already had homeowners insurance; 
robo-signing fraudulent foreclosure documents.
  The violations were so widespread, his company had to settle with 49

[[Page S1424]]

States. Let me repeat that--49 States. A man who builds a fortune off 
illegally cheating people out of their homes has no business running 
our Commerce Department.
  So let's summarize. Mr. Ross has extensive ties to Russia. He plans 
to keep making money from his major oil shipping companies while 
working as Commerce Secretary. He has made billions off the backs of 
struggling homeowners, and in his free time he hangs out with Wall 
Street tycoons who sit around and make fun of everyone else. This is 
disgusting. For all of these reasons--for any of them, really--I urge 
my colleagues to reject this nomination.
  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. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________