[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 172 (Wednesday, October 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6801-S6802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is nice to see the distinguished 
Senator in the chair presiding. I am not sure, in my 183 ``Time to Wake 
Up'' speeches, I have yet had the pleasure of speaking while the 
Senator was presiding.
  I am here to once again call for us to wake up to the corporate 
capture of Congress and this administration--the capture of governance 
by the fossil fuel industry that keeps us from honestly addressing 
climate change. There is a saying that ``personnel is policy.'' Well, 
the Trump personnel for positions at the Environmental Protection 
Agency reflect a policy to undo the public welfare mission of the 
Agency and align it with the special interests of the fossil fuel 
industry.
  There is a word for that. It is called corruption, at least as the 
Founding Fathers knew the meaning of that term. It starts at the top. 
Trump named Scott Pruitt head of the EPA. Pruitt has a long record of 
dark money fundraising and long, cozy relationships with Big Energy 
industry political donors. In effect, he is a tentacle of the fossil 
fuel climate denial operation, wiggling and wriggling in the 
Administrator's chair, near his new $25,000 ``cone of silence'' secret 
communications booth that he built so no one would hear him checking in 
with his masters.
  Results are as expected. The New York Times has reported: ``How 
Rollbacks at Scott Pruitt's EPA are a Boon to Oil and Gas.'' No 
surprise. In the 4 months that followed his appointment, Pruitt moved 
to undo, delay, or otherwise block more than 30 environmental rules 
benefiting his fossil fuel friends. This regulatory rollback, larger in 
scope than any over so short a time in the Agency's near-half century 
history, went straight into the pockets of the fossil fuel industry.
  Longtime Pruitt benefactor Devon Energy is cashing in dividends on 
its investment in Scott Pruitt's political career, as Pruitt is working 
to eliminate rules on the leaking and flaring of methane, and has 
rescinded requirements for reporting methane emissions. Devon, as you 
may recall, is that company whose letter to the EPA Pruitt put on his 
own Oklahoma attorney general letterhead to mask Devon's hand and 
submit their work as his own official work as attorney general of his 
State.
  So this hand-in-glove relationship between Devon as the hand and 
Pruitt as the glove goes back a long way. The EPA has career scientists 
and legal experts who bring decades of experience in environmental law 
and science to the EPA who are all being cut out as the Administrator 
takes drastic steps to undo environmental protections. Just this week, 
EPA scientists were yanked from a conference in Rhode Island where they 
were going to talk about climate change. The matter of climate change 
on Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island is pretty significant. This is the 
day's Providence Journal, our leading newspaper in Rhode Island. 
Headline: ``Will climate change negate Bay cleanup?'' It has a big map 
of Narragansett Bay with all the facilities at risk of being flooded 
and overwhelmed. It is front page news.
  It is a matter of extreme importance in Rhode Island, and EPA yanked 
out its scientists. They weren't allowed to come down and talk at an 
event where they were going to talk about climate change. It is not 
just yanking the scientists. Here is a New York Times article by Lisa 
Friedman from October 20. Headline: ``EPA scrubs a climate website of 
`climate change.' '' An EPA website has been scrubbed of scores of 
links. ``About 15 mentions of the words climate change have been 
removed from the main page alone. . . .''
  It is not just at EPA. Here is today's exclusive headline: ``The 
Interior Department scrubs climate change from its strategic plan.'' I 
mean, they act as if this is the Soviet Union and the government is 
allowed to tell scientists what they can say and not say and put phony 
propaganda onto official websites and keep scientists from going to 
meetings because they might actually tell the truth about climate 
change.
  I am the son and grandson of Foreign Service officers. I grew up 
serving in countries that did that, where the government could tell the 
scientist: No, you don't say that. No, you don't go there. No, this is 
the party line. I never thought that would happen in the United States 
of America--and here we are.
  To aid Pruitt in his fossil fuel industry crusade, our President has 
nominated a parade of fossil fuel lackeys, lobbyists, and operatives 
whose main qualification seems to be allegiance to their corporate 
clients and benefactors. It is not just the fossil fuel industry that 
gets their hacks planted in government offices.
  Do you remember in the ``Cat in the Hat,'' where they had Thing One 
and Thing Two running around? Let's look at Hack One and Hack Two, who 
just cleared committee today in the Pruitt ``EPA for Sale'' roster.
  Hack One is a toxicologist who consults for major chemical 
corporations and has spent the better part of his professional life 
fighting regulation of potentially toxic compounds in consumer goods. 
His name is Michael Dourson. President Trump nominated him to run the 
EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. A lobbying 
group for sellers of pesticides, fungicides, and rodenticides called 
Dourson ``a perfect fit'' for the job--the perfect industry hack for 
that job, more like.
  Hack Two is William Wehrum, nominated to run the EPA Office of Air 
and Radiation. Wehrum is a lobbyist who has represented a host of major 
industrial and energy corporations, and the Rubber Manufacturers 
Association, the American Forest and Paper Association, and the 
American Petroleum Institute. President George W. Bush actually 
nominated this guy to the same post in 2006, but the White House 
withdrew his nomination because it was so controversial.
  Well, that was 2006. That was before Citizens United. That was before 
that decision amped up industry power to the point where it can now ram 
through conflicted and objectionable candidates with--as happened this 
morning--unanimous Republican support. Not one Republican Senator on 
the committee would voice an objection.
  When Senators asked questions for the record in the Environment and

[[Page S6802]]

Public Works Committee nomination hearing on Wehrum and Dourson, these 
captured nominees played dumb about the central issues and programs 
they will oversee if confirmed.
  For instance, I asked Dourson if he agreed that ``the tobacco 
industry manipulated and obfuscated scientific research into the 
dangers of smoking for decades.'' Dourson, who conducted scientific 
studies designed, reviewed, and paid for by the tobacco industry and 
whose name is all over, in hundreds of places, the discovery records of 
the tobacco industry's denial operation, replied: ``I do not have 
firsthand knowledge to comment.''
  I ``do not have firsthand knowledge to comment''? This is the 
President's selection to run the office that protects Americans from 
dangerous chemicals who doesn't know the tobacco industry's history of 
falsifying science? Please. He worked for them. He was part of it.
  Remember that the tobacco industry was taken to court by the U.S. 
Department of Justice--back when the Department of Justice would take 
an industry to court--and the Department of Justice won a judgment 
declaring that tobacco had engaged in a fraud conspiracy to deny 
tobacco's harms. Dourson sees no evil. He knows nothing.
  I asked him whether he believes that hydrofluorocarbons are 
greenhouse gases and about the global warming potential of methane. His 
response: I am not sufficiently familiar with the definition of 
greenhouse gases and do not have the expertise to answer these 
questions.
  He is not familiar with the definition of greenhouse gases? This is 
basic high school science. Every one of us has a home State university 
that teaches this stuff. This has been science for more than 100 years.
  On to Hack Two, Bill Wehrum. When I asked Wehrum about carbon 
dioxide's role in the observable effects of climate change, he replied: 
``The degree to which manmade greenhouse gas emissions are contributing 
to climate change has not been conclusively determined.'' This claim 
just doesn't match the scientific record.
  The EPA--the very Agency to which Mr. Wehrum is nominated, along with 
NOAA--states that ``carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that 
is contributing to recent climate change.'' This consensus is held by 
published climate scientists, by scientific agencies and societies, by 
all of our National Laboratories, and by universities in America and 
around the globe.
  As I said, every one of us in this room--I haven't found an exception 
yet, and I have looked, but I expect every Senator has a home State 
university that doesn't just know this to be true, but it teaches it in 
its curriculum. But Hack Two sees no evil. He knows nothing.
  Wehrum's disregard for well-established science provides a grim 
preview of what we can expect from him if confirmed. His predictable 
dodging falls in lockstep with Administrator Pruitt, who has stated he 
does ``not agree that [carbon dioxide] is a primary contributor to the 
global warming that we see.'' That puts him in a very small circle of 
people, every one of whom I think is connected by money to the fossil 
fuel industry.
  I asked Mr. Wehrum what he believes is a healthy standard for ozone. 
Now, bear in mind that one of the goals of the Clean Air Act is to set 
national ambient air quality standards for ozone, that the office to 
which he is nominated oversees this ozone standard, and that the EPA 
has had ozone standards in place since 1971, more than 45 years.
  In response to my question, Wehrum answered: ``I am not familiar with 
the current science on the health effects of ozone, so I cannot comment 
on your question as to the appropriate level of the standard.'' Really?
  I asked Wehrum whether he agreed with EPA's 2009 finding that the 
current and projected concentrations of greenhouse gases in the 
atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future 
generations. I asked if he would commit not to narrow or weaken the 
EPA's endangerment finding. Wehrum wrote back that he had not read the 
endangerment finding or the record prepared in support of the finding; 
therefore, he said: ``I currently do not have a view.'' I currently do 
not have a view? That is funny.
  I bet he had a view when he was being paid by the Rubber 
Manufacturers Association, the American Forest & Paper Association, and 
the American Petroleum Institute. I guess it was the miraculous, 
evaporating view.
  Maybe these ``see no evil'' nominees, Dourson and Wehrum, don't know 
the basics of the problems they would confront. Maybe they just don't 
know, but let's not be fooled here. Polluters have paid these nominees 
well for their services over the years. They were expert enough to be 
hired by industry groups as lobbyists and consultants. We know where 
their allegiances lie. We know who has been paying them. We know whom 
they will serve.
  A preview of coming attractions, coming up before the EPW soon is 
Andrew Wheeler, Trump's nominee for the EPA's second in command. 
Wheeler was a top lobbyist for the coal mining behemoth, Murray Energy. 
Not only did this company support Trump's campaign and provide $300,000 
to help pay for his inauguration, Murray Energy has also donated to 
Pruitt-affiliated political action committees to the tune of hundreds 
of thousands of dollars. I can't wait to hear his answers on the role 
of coal in climate change, childhood asthma, and mercury poisoning.
  The sad part of all of this is, the polluting interests that own 
these nominees also throw their weight around in Congress. So good luck 
getting an honest look at this mess through congressional oversight.
  Over and over, appalling nominees get through confirmation with no 
Republican dissent, more ``see no evil.'' It is just wrong.
  For now, the American public will pay the price of dismantling these 
regulatory safeguards. They will pay the price in poisonings and 
carcinogenic exposures, in rising seas and raging wildfires, in 
childhood asthma and northbound tropical diseases. Mark my words, one 
day there will be a reckoning for all of this.
  When captured EPA officials put payback to their donors first and 
clean air and public health a way distant second, it stinks. It is 
crooked by any reasonable definition of the term. It is corrupt in 
exactly the way the Founding Fathers understood corruption.
  The fossil fuel industry will one day be held to account for this 
binge of corruption and manipulation. ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Arch 
Coal, Murray Coal, Peabody Coal, you own this just as the Republican 
Party does.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.