[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 183 (Thursday, November 9, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7126-S7132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Republican Tax Plan
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, later today the Senate Republicans will
release their version of the tax bill. The bill will not include a
single idea of Democrats in the Senate. Not a single Democrat has had
any input into this bill. It was constructed entirely behind closed
doors by the majority party, who have no intention of negotiating with
Democrats because they locked themselves into a partisan process that
only requires a majority vote.
They are trying to rush it through this Chamber with reckless speed.
Why? Because my friends on the other side know that the longer their
bill is out there for the public to see, the less the public likes it.
Their only hopes of passing it are to rush it through before anyone can
grapple with the stunning hypocrisy at the center of their plan.
The Republican majority has repeatedly promised a middle-class tax
bill, but instead, they have concocted a bill grounded in tax cuts for
big corporations and the very rich. They actually hurt middle-class
people because they need to give those big breaks for the wealthiest.
While promising that their plan gives ``everyone a tax cut''--that is
what Speaker Ryan said again today--multiple independent analyses
conclude that the House Republican tax plan would increase taxes on
millions of middle-class families, contrary to what Republicans
promised and what Donald Trump has promised. They said: No middle-class
people will get an increase. This is aimed at helping the middle class.
But the vast majority of the help goes to the wealthiest and biggest
corporations. A New York Times analysis found that next year the House
Republican plan would cause taxes to go up on one-third of all middle-
class families. By 2026 taxes will go up on nearly half of all middle-
class families.
So even if you come from a State with a lower tax rate--a red State--
it is probably a good bet that a quarter of the middle-class families
will get a tax increase. I think the lowest I saw was 17 percent for
West Virginia.
So this hurts middle-class people, and it hurts certain middle-class
people much more than others--people who have student loans, people who
have high medical expenses, people who come from States where there are
large property taxes, people who have big mortgages. These are middle-
class people. They should not get a tax increase.
Mark Mazer, director of the independent Tax Policy Center, said:
You could create a plan that just cuts taxes for middle-
class people. That's not what this is.
That is him, not me. It is what Republicans promised people.
Now, we will see what the Senate comes up with today. But several
Republican Senators have already confirmed that the Senate bill has the
same structure as the House bill, and, in at least one way, we know it
is worse for middle-class families than the House bill because the
House bill will reduce the value of State and local deductions by 70
percent, while the Senate bill eliminates it entirely. My friend from
Ohio, Senator Portman, confirmed that a few days ago on FOX Business.
This should be a three-alarm fire for every House Republican in
California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Illinois,
Colorado, and Minnesota. Senate Republicans are telling House
Republicans there will be no compromise on State and local
deductibility. It is full repeal or bust because Senate Republicans
need the revenue raised by ending this popular middle-class deduction.
There are several deficit hawks in the Senate. We have stricter
budget rules for reconciliation. If the Senate tax plan includes cuts
to the corporate rate, the pass-through rate, and on upper tax
brackets--which dramatically increase the deficit--they will need the
revenue from the full repeal of State and local to make the numbers
work.
So I say to every one of my Republican colleagues in the House who
comes from a suburban district: This bill could be your political doom.
Don't let the special interests, don't let the party leadership push
you into doing something that is bad for so many of your constituents.
You will pay a price.
House Republicans should kill the bill now if they want to have any
hope of stopping the full repeal of the State and local deduction. They
can't hide behind the so-called compromise in the House bill. It is
nothing more than a temporary fig leaf for full and permanent repeal.
As I said, if House Republicans don't kill it now, it will come back
to haunt them. The overwhelming Democratic turnout in suburban
districts in Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania should send shivers
down the spine of House Republicans who represent those districts.
Voting to repeal the State and local deduction--walloping the middle-
class and upper middle-class suburbs--would be political suicide, all
this to bow down to the special big interests of large corporations.
Even with the compromise, the House numbers are devastating.
Representative MacArthur said he was shown information that shows the
compromise is good for his district, and he went from a no to a
``leans'' yes, according to POLITICO.
Representative MacArthur, go look at the real numbers.
[[Page S7127]]
Forty-three percent of taxpayers in Representative MacArthur's
district take the State and local deduction, for an average of $11,987
per deduction. Over half of the value of these deductions is not the
property tax at all. It is State and local income taxes, which will be
taken away under the plan.
Then, according to IRS data, there are a good number for whom the
property taxes are over $10,000, meaning the compromise still wouldn't
help them. So I would not, if I were Representative MacArthur, listen
to the numbers the Republican leadership is giving him. I would do my
own independent analysis because I believe he would find them to be a
lot worse than what the leadership is telling him.
I say to my other Republican colleagues: Don't fall for those quick
numbers. Go do your own looking at this. It is a lot worse than your
leadership is telling you.
One final point here on taxes, for some reason the conventional
wisdom on the Republican side is that because of the stunning depth of
their losses in the recent elections, there is even a greater need to
pass the tax plan. We have to do this or we will fall apart, they said.
It makes no sense. They are misreading the public.
Ed Gillespie, for all of his divisive ads, also ran a traditional
establishment campaign. The linchpin of his campaign was the $1,000 tax
cut for everybody. It got him nowhere. Exit polls from the Virginia
election showed that the No. 1 issue on voters' minds was healthcare,
and they voted overwhelmingly Democratic. Yet, amazingly, Republicans
may repeal the individual mandate as part of their tax bill. How do
they think that is going to fly?
Despite the spin from Republican leaders, passing this plan will not
help Republicans climb out of the hole they are in. It will bury them
deeper. Maybe if they pass the bill, they will not say they are in
disarray for the moment, but already this bill has had a miserable
rollout. You know that when a party rolls out their No. 1 legislative
plan, there should be trumpets and bands, but the public knows already
that the bill favors the wealthy. The public knows that middle-class
people get a tax increase.
So at best, the rollout of this bill has been mixed. I would say it
has been negative, and the American people agree because many more
people are against this bill than are for it, according to all of the
polls. Passing a partisan tax plan that favors the wealthy and raises
taxes on millions of middle-class and upper middle-class families in
the suburbs is no political cure. It is political poison.
The real way to win back the esteem of the American people would be
to put partisanship aside, put a giant tax cut for the wealthy on the
shelf, and come work with Democrats on real bipartisan reform.
Mr. President, I would also like to just announce my strong
opposition to Mr. Wehrum to the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation.
While working in senior roles at the Office during the Bush
administration, Mr. Wehrum led the efforts to weaken clean air
protections. During his tenure, courts ruled that the Agency violated
the Clean Air Act 30 times. Mr. Wehrum represented industry clients
against the EPA 31 times since 2008.
He does not deserve to be in this position. Anyone who cares about
the lungs of their children should not want Mr. Wehrum in that
position. I hope we will get some bipartisan support to reject this
really awful nomination.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I want to continue to share with our
colleagues the reasons I oppose the nomination of Bill Wehrum to be
EPA's Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation. Throughout his
career, Mr. Wehrum has clearly shown he is dismissive of the science
that is the core of EPA's actions to protect public health. Nothing
during this confirmation process has convinced me that Mr. Wehrum's
approach will change going forward.
I have said this before, and I will say it again because it makes Mr.
Wehrum's priorities clear, our courts have overturned regulations that
Mr. Wehrum helped craft while at EPA a staggering 27 times. That is 27
times that the courts determined the rules Mr. Wehrum put in place did
not follow the law or did not adequately protect public safety--27
times.
In one of those instances, the courts faulted EPA's lack of action to
reduce mercury and toxic air pollution emissions from electric
powerplants.
I have worked on controlling mercury pollution since I became a
Member of this body 17 years ago, so I would like to spend some time
talking about this issue, mercury.
Much of our country's ongoing efforts to clean up air pollution hinge
on making sure every State plays by the rules and does their fair share
to reduce air pollution. That includes dangerous toxic pollution like
mercury. Toxic air pollution gets into the air we breathe, gets into
the food we eat, builds up in our bodies without our knowledge and can
lead to cancer, to mental impairment, and even to death.
Unfortunately, Mr. Wehrum has spent much of his career fighting to
dismantle the Federal environmental protections on which any State--my
State, your State, so many other States--depends in order to clean up
toxic air pollution.
Twenty-seven is also the number of years ago that President George
Herbert Walker Bush signed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 into
law. Nearly three decades ago, Congress had enough scientific data to
know that mercury and other air toxics, such as lead and arsenic, were
hazardous air pollutants that harmed people's health and, as a result,
should be regulated by the EPA.
The lawmakers--including myself--who sent the Clean Air Act
Amendments of 1990 to the desk of a Republican President thought that
the Nation's largest emitters of mercury and air toxics would soon be
required to do their part and clean up. Unfortunately, it took 22
additional years for the EPA to issue the Mercury and Air Toxic Rule,
which finally, 5 years ago, called for reducing mercury and other air
toxics from coal-fired plants, our Nation's largest source of mercury
emissions.
The EPA modeled the rule after successful steps that States across
our country had already taken. The Agency required coal plants to
install existing affordable technology that could reduce mercury and
toxic emissions by 90 percent.
Today our Nation's power utilities are meeting the mercury and air
toxics standards--they are meeting it--and electricity prices have not
gone up; they have gone down. Some of you might find that hard to
believe, but it is true. They have actually gone down.
You might ask why it took the EPA 22 years to address our Nation's
largest source of mercury and air toxics emissions. That is a fair
question. The answer, in part, is that Mr. Wehrum was working at the
EPA and had the responsibility to assume this life-enhancing--if not
lifesaving--task, a responsibility, sadly, he largely chose to ignore.
In the early 2000s, under Mr. Wehrum's leadership, the EPA decided to
take a detour when it came to regulating mercury and air toxics from
powerplants. Mr. Wehrum refused to follow the recommendation from the
National Academy of Sciences and instead reversed an earlier EPA
decision. He determined it was neither appropriate nor necessary to
regulate powerplants under the air toxics section of the Clean Air Act.
Instead, he chose a different path, helping to write a rule allowing
powerplants to pollute more and for a longer time under a mercury cap-
and-trade program.
In his push to make regulations on mercury emissions less protective,
Mr. Wehrum promulgated a rule that industry not only supported but
helped to write. In January 2004, the Washington Post reported that
language written for industry by Mr. Wehrum's old law firm--Latham &
Watkins--appeared word for word in the proposed rule published in the
Federal Register--word for word.
The story reported that ``a side-by-side comparison of one of the
three proposed rules and the memorandums prepared by Latham & Watkins
shows that at least a dozen paragraphs were lifted, sometimes verbatim,
from the industry suggestions.''
After Mr. Wehrum's mercury rule was finalized, the Federal courts
found that EPA had exaggerated the rule's benefits and, as a result,
the rule was
[[Page S7128]]
overturned. In fact, the EPA lost so badly that the deciding judge said
that under the leadership of Mr. Wehrum, the Agency deployed ``the
logic of the Queen of Hearts, substituting the EPA's desires for the
plain text of the law.''
So EPA had to start all over again because Mr. Wehrum ignored science
and deferred to industry. What makes that delay process so egregious is
that our Nation's children were exposed to toxic air emissions from
powerplants for an additional decade for no good reason.
In 2011, the Obama administration finally issued a new rule--the
mercury and air toxic standard rule--that protects our children,
protects our health, and protects our lakes and our rivers. What is
more, industry is easily able to meet the rule's targets, and our
Nation is already seeing the benefits, but these health benefits do not
seem to matter to Mr. Wehrum, who is still fighting for delays in
mercury and air toxic emission reductions.
In fact, while representing his industry clients, he has supported a
lawsuit against the mercury and air toxic rule. Under his leadership,
Mr. Wehrum's law firm has been arguing that it is not ``appropriate and
necessary'' for the EPA to regulate mercury and other air toxic
emissions. Not appropriate and necessary? That is what he says.
When I asked Mr. Wehrum about his time at the EPA and his work to
delay mercury regulations, he was elusive. He seemed to have a
selective memory with respect to the actions he did or did not take
when he last served at the EPA.
When I asked him if he would commit not to weaken the mercury and air
toxic rule if confirmed, he basically refused to answer. However, to
his colleagues, he is very clear regarding his thoughts on the mercury
and air toxic rule. In a trade press article published just 1 year ago,
Mr. Wehrum said: ``From our perspective, it's a regulation that made no
sense and wasn't justified.''
Mr. Wehrum believes there is no justification for EPA to regulate the
largest source of mercury and air toxic pollution--pollution that
pediatricians tell us damage children's brains and could affect up to
600,000 newborns every year--600,000 newborns every year.
Mr. Wehrum believes there is no justification for EPA to regulate the
largest source of mercury and air toxics pollution--pollution that
settles in our lakes, our rivers, streams, accumulates in our fish, and
makes them too dangerous to eat.
Mr. Wehrum believes there is no justification for EPA to regulate the
largest source of mercury and air toxics pollution, even though power
companies have already bought, paid for, and installed the control
technology on all powerplants without hiking electricity rates.
This information should be quite concerning to all of us, to all of
our colleagues--I don't care where we come from--especially those who
have supported the mercury and air toxic rule, as many of us have.
If confirmed, Mr. Wehrum would be part of the review of the mercury
and air toxic rule that Mr. Pruitt promises to undertake. Think about
that.
This is just one of the many clear examples in which Mr. Wehrum
continues to support polluters over science and doctors, even going so
far as to give polluters the pen to write the regulations they would
have to follow. Unfortunately, there are many more.
Mr. Wehrum also spearheaded regulations when he was last at EPA that
weakened air protections for national parks. The courts threw out those
efforts to weaken the so-called regional haze rule, compelling the
Obama administration to clean up his mess and provide this protection
for iconic parks like the Grand Canyon and the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park because, again, Mr. Wehrum did not follow science or the
law.
Nonetheless, Mr. Wehrum continues to pursue ongoing litigation
against EPA's efforts to reduce national park pollution. Last year, Mr.
Wehrum declared in an article: ``EPA used the regional haze programs to
impose very stringent, and from our perspective, unwarranted emissions
requirements.''
Mr. Wehrum also has a long history of ignoring climate change science
and the laws that regulate carbon emissions. While at the EPA, Mr.
Wehrum was critical of the Agency's decision to deny the State of
California a waiver to impose stricter vehicle standards to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions as well as costs for consumers. Mr. Wehrum
personally pushed for this action against recommendations of the career
staff who did not believe the George W. Bush administration political
appointee had a legal basis to deny California's request.
I am here today to remind Mr. Wehrum and all those who continue to
delay action to control greenhouse gas emissions under the premise that
more information about how the climate is changing or whether or not
human beings are exacerbating the effects of climate change--the facts
are in. The science is clear.
Even if he doesn't want to believe the numbers and the data--Mr.
Wehrum lives in Delaware, as do I. We run races together, sometimes
ride the same trains back and forth between Wilmington and Washington.
However, in the State in which we both reside, for us, the effects of
climate change are evident. In our State, we are the Nation's lowest
lying State. Parts of our State are sinking while at the same time the
waters are rising along our shores.
By his own admission, while at the EPA, Mr. Wehrum provided support
to the government litigation team in a famous case: Massachusetts v.
EPA. That team argued that greenhouse gases are not pollutants that
could be regulated under the Clean Air Act. It is not just me who
disagreed with Mr. Wehrum in this instance, the Supreme Court of the
United States disagreed as well.
Unfortunately, Mr. Wehrum's views on climate change seem to be the
same as they were 15 years ago. Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in
Massachusetts v. EPA, which affirmed EPA's authority to regulate
greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, Mr. Wehrum insisted in 2013
that he ``continues to believe, that Congress never intended the EPA to
address an issue such as climate change under the Clean Air Act.''
In his nomination hearing before the EPW Committee, Mr. Wehrum
claimed that the climate is changing, but much is unknown--much is
unknown--about why and how fast those changes are occurring.
I could go on for a while, as you can imagine, but suffice it to say,
these views of Mr. Wehrum are not just curious, they are dangerous.
They are dangerous. Ignoring environmental health science just because
you would rather not put protections in place hurts all of us in the
end but especially the most vulnerable among us. Mr. Wehrum's time at
EPA is at odds with the public health mission of that Agency.
All of the failed regulations Mr. Wehrum worked on created greater
uncertainty for business and left the lives of the most vulnerable
populations at risk.
I would like to close by reflecting on why I think today's vote is so
important. My wife Martha and I go to a Presbyterian Church in
Wilmington most Sundays. Earlier this year, on an especially lovely
spring morning--a morning I had gone out for a run--we joined our
congregation in singing a number of hymns, and one of them began with
these words:
For the beauty of the Earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.
It is a powerful passage, and we should let these words really and
truly resonate, especially on this morning.
Scripture reminds us repeatedly to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We know that and call that the Golden Rule. It appears in every major
religion in the world--I don't care if you are Christian, Jewish,
Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist. I don't care what your faith is, there is a
Golden Rule in your Sacred Scriptures. In our faith, we call it the
Golden Rule.
Also found in those pages is another sacred obligation that we are to
serve as stewards of this planet to which we have been entrusted, and
we have a moral obligation to do so. I know a great many of our
colleagues here in the Senate agree that we have a responsibility to
care for the world around us and the people who live in it. Most
Americans believe that. We all have an obligation to protect the health
of our children and our families
[[Page S7129]]
and the world in which we live. We have an obligation to ensure that we
have clean air to breathe--perhaps the most basic, most important right
of all. For me, this is not only my responsibility as a parent and as
an official elected to serve the people of Delaware; it is a moral
imperative, a moral calling.
Americans deserve EPA leaders who believe in sound science. Americans
need EPA leaders who will listen to the medical experts when it comes
to our health and who will be able to strike a balance that ensures
both a cleaner environment and a stronger economy--something we have
done for the past 27 years since the adoption of the Clean Air Act
Amendments of 1990.
Moving forward with this nominee and thus allowing him to execute his
extreme agenda once again at the EPA, especially when we have seen how
poorly he handled that authority before, would be, in my mind, simply
irresponsible. I do not believe Mr. Wehrum is the right fit for this
position. I encourage my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, to vote
no on his nomination to be EPA's Assistant Administrator for Air.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that prior to the vote on
confirmation on the Wehrum nomination, there be an additional 2 minutes
of debate, equally divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Strange). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the nomination of
William Wehrum to be the next Assistant Administrator for Air and
Radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency. This job is really
pretty straightforward. The person in this job must fight for the right
of every American to breathe clean air. But here is the problem: Mr.
Wehrum has dedicated his career to the service of corporate polluters.
Like President Trump and Administrator Pruitt, in a fight between hard-
working families and well-paid corporate polluters, Mr. Wehrum sides
with the corporate polluters every single time.
President Trump promised to ``drain the swamp'' in DC. But,
seemingly, with every week, this Republican-controlled Senate approves
yet another one of the President's corporate insiders to advance Big
Oil and Big Coal's dirty wish list. The decision to nominate Mr. Wehrum
is no exception. He is another conflict-ridden, climate-dismissing
Trump nominee who has made a career of putting corporate profits ahead
of hard-working families who depend on the EPA to have their backs.
Some of my Republican colleagues have argued that Mr. Wehrum has
extensive experience serving at the EPA under the Bush administration,
and that is true. Let's take a look at his experience. Mr. Wehrum
fought to keep States from setting their own higher vehicle emissions
standards in order to try to keep the air cleaner. He played a key role
in the Bush administration's insistence that the EPA has no
responsibility to combat climate change--a view that the Supreme Court
rejected in 2007 in Massachusetts v. EPA. When the Bush EPA was
required by law to propose a rule limiting mercury emissions from
powerplants, Mr. Wehrum's influence helped tilt the rule to benefit big
coal. In fact, several paragraphs of the proposed rule were lifted
verbatim from memos provided by the same pro-coal lobbying firm that
Mr. Wehrum had worked at before joining the EPA.
The egregious inadequacy of the proposed rule and its blatant
disregard for rulemaking processes led to 8 years of unnecessary delay
in limiting toxic mercury emissions. There were 8 additional years of
an estimated 130,000 asthma attacks, 8 years of 11,000 premature
deaths--all potentially avoidable if Mr. Wehrum and his colleagues had
just listened to the science and made the protection of human life more
important than the protection of corporate interests.
During his tenure at the EPA, looking out for big corporate polluters
was standard practice for Mr. Wehrum. In 27 separate cases--27 cases--
Federal courts found that the regulations that Mr. Wehrum helped write
contradicted or violated the Clean Air Act and failed to protect public
health.
Mr. Wehrum has a lot of experience--the weak-kneed experience of
someone kissing up to big corporate interests.
In reflecting on his time at the EPA, Mr. Wehrum said: ``I'm a much
better lawyer now than when I first joined the agency. To really get to
know how the agency works and how it ticks, I think that is very
valuable.''
Yes, valuable, sure, but valuable for whom? Valuable for small towns
across America that desperately need more champions fighting in their
corner? Valuable for our coastal communities and farmers dealing with
the tangible effects of climate change? No. He meant valuable for his
own bank account.
Mr. Wehrum describes his time working at the EPA as being ``very
valuable'' because it allowed him to ``be effective in generating
business and clients.''
I guess he thinks this latest trip through the revolving door will be
even better for helping him drum up business from future polluters.
And why wouldn't he? Since leaving the EPA in 2007, Mr. Wehrum has
been one of the go-to lawyers for big corporate polluters looking to
get off easy or to save a buck at the public's expense. In at least 31
lawsuits against the EPA, Mr. Wehrum has fought to diminish Federal
climate policy, to roll back limits on toxic mercury emissions, and to
undermine public health protections. From what I can tell, not once has
he chosen to use his valuable experience at the EPA to fight for
stronger clean air protections that benefit our children and our
seniors who suffer the most from toxic emissions.
When deciding whether someone is qualified for public service, sure,
experience matters. But it matters who you fight for--whether it is a
lawyer before the courts or as a senior appointee in the
administration. It matters whether you have a demonstrated commitment
to serving the public interest or the narrow corporate interests of
rich companies.
Mr. Wehrum is not a person who fights for the moms and dads who know
the terror of a child having an asthma attack. He is not a person who
fights for the low-income and often minority communities that are
literally choking under a cloud of industry toxins. He is not a person
who fights for our communities that are suffering from the growing
impact of climate change. No, he is a person who does the lucrative
bidding of corporate DC insiders, both in government and outside
government, and then he leaves American families to just suffer the
consequences.
This administration, this Republican Congress, and nominees like Mr.
Wehrum are experts at ignoring the facts, but they can't change those
facts. Our planet is getting hotter. Our seas are rising at an alarming
rate. Our coasts and islands are threatened by devastating storms. Our
farms and forests are threatened by droughts and wildfires that are
becoming so common across this country that they barely even make the
evening news.
The effects of man-made climate change are all around us. Things will
only get worse if we don't do something about it. We should never hand
our government over to wealthy and powerful companies that put their
own profits ahead of people. We certainly shouldn't put someone in
charge of our clean air program that will not put the health, the
safety, and the future of the American people ahead of short-term
corporate profits.
Make no mistake, President Trump wants a fight. Administrator Pruitt
wants a fight. William Wehrum wants a fight. And we will give them that
fight because the American people will fight to protect the health of
our children and our grandchildren, to build a clean energy economy,
and to safeguard the future of our planet.
The American people deserve someone who will fight in their corner,
and that is not William Wehrum.
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. WHITEHOUSE. 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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it has been a sorry spectacle for
Americans to witness what the polluting industries are doing, with the
full connivance of the Trump administration,
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to the Environmental Protection Agency--an Agency that enjoys broad
popularity among the American people but is obviously a thorn in the
side of big polluters who make very big campaign contributions and
therefore have inordinately big influence here in Congress.
The creep show parade of nominees to the offices responsible for
protecting the public's health at EPA is nothing short of astounding.
It is an array of cranks, charlatans, hacks, lobbyists, and toadies in
really unprecedented measure in the history of our country. It seems
that at this point the key and only credential for appointment to the
Environmental Protection Agency is that you are reliably pro-industry
and reliably anti-public health.
We are facing a nomination for one of these characters, whose name is
William Wehrum. He was previously nominated to the EPA Office of Air
and Radiation in 2006, but even back then, his record was such a
scandal that the White House withdrew his nomination. Now, that was
2006. That was before Citizens United. That was before the flood of
political power to the big polluting industries. Now, on this new
political field, he is back, he is just as bad, and there is no hint
that the Trump administration has any intention of withdrawing his
nomination. He has a real problem dealing with environmental issues,
and I think it relates to his record.
In recent years, Mr. Wehrum has represented industry in 39 Federal
appellate cases opposing cleaner air protection. He is 39 to 0 in terms
of taking the side of industry against clean air protections, and 31 of
those cases involved lawsuits against EPA. So he will now be defending
and judging cases of the type that he brought against the EPA on behalf
of industry. Again, not one of those cases argued for better clean air
protections. Many of them questioned air toxic standards that had been
established by EPA. Some of the lawsuits were against rules that had to
be rewritten by the Obama administration when EPA failed to follow the
Clean Air Act, when a rule was thrown out by the courts for failing to
be true to the law. So this is not a great moment for the integrity of
government in this particular case.
When we asked Mr. Wehrum questions--for instance, I asked him about
carbon dioxide's role in the observable effects of climate change, and
he replied: ``The degree to which manmade [greenhouse gas] emissions
are contributing to climate change has not been conclusively
determined.''
That entire sentence hangs on one word: ``conclusively.'' So if 999
scientists said that this is indeed conclusive but you had 1 outlier--1
against 999--then you could argue that the degree to which manmade
greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change has not
been conclusively determined. But in the world in which Mr. Wehrum is
going to be making decisions, that is not a relevant standard. That is
a standard that comes from the climate-denial talking points; it is not
a standard that arises from the law or from the way administrative
agencies are required to review scientific evidence.
The distinguished Presiding Officer was an attorney general and knows
very well that the standard for getting scientific evidence admitted in
a court proceeding is whether it is accurate to a reasonable degree of
certainty. There is no standard that it has to be conclusive; that is
an imaginary prop of the fossil fuel industry to be able to address the
fact that it is virtually unanimous science against them and there are
only a few payroll scientists floating around to keep it from being
conclusive.
To a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, are manmade
greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change? Without a
doubt. Indeed, NOAA and EPA have concluded that ``carbon dioxide is the
primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change.''
That is it. And rules at an administrative agency have to pass the test
of being based on substantial evidence, as the Presiding Officer knows,
and not being arbitrary or capricious. In any rational world, it would
be arbitrary and capricious to deny the vast weight of science because
it is not 100 percent conclusive. Nobody makes decisions on that basis
in real life.
This, right in this individual's testimony, is a direct echo of
fossil fuel industry talking points, fossil fuel industry propaganda,
and it is a preview of coming attractions as to whose message he will
be mouthing in a position of public responsibility.
Similarly, I asked him about ozone. One of the goals of the Clean Air
Act itself is to set standards for how much ozone there can be in the
air. This makes a big difference to Rhode Island because Rhode Island
is a downwind State from most of the industrial and powerplant
emissions through the Ohio Valley, in the Midwest, and through West
Virginia. We actually have ozone alert days in Rhode Island--ozone
alert days, when you drive in in the morning and the drive-time radio
is warning you that this is not a good day to be outside. It looks
sunny. Ozone is transparent. It looks fine. It is usually warm because
ozone is propagated in warm air. So on a warm, sunny day, you are
driving in, it looks as if everything is fine, and you are warned that
the elderly, small children, and people who have breathing difficulties
or disabilities should stay indoors. That is the price Rhode Islanders
are asked to pay for this ozone pollution we have to live with--stay
indoors.
Ozone standards have been in place at EPA for 45 years. For 45 years,
EPA has regulated ozone. What did Wehrum answer when I asked him about
ozone? ``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? He wants to run this
office--the office which has been handling ozone regulation for 45
years--and he is not familiar with the current science on the health
effects of ozone? I think he is quite familiar with the current science
on ozone, and in this position, he is going to be looking for ways to
get around that science to help the ozone-emitting clients of his
private practice.
I asked him about the endangerment finding. The background of the
endangerment finding is this: In Massachusetts v. Environmental
Protection Agency, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that
carbon pollution was, in fact, a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
They decided that in the Supreme Court, and that is now the law of the
land.
Then, pursuant to that Supreme Court determination, the EPA had to
take a look at whether it is a dangerous pollutant. And they did. Their
determination as to whether it is a dangerous pollutant is called an
endangerment finding. Sure enough, EPA found that carbon dioxide being
emitted by these fossil fuel plants is, in fact, a danger to present
and future Americans, to this generation and to generations to come.
Mr. Pruitt, who is one of the slyer rascals around out there, said in
the Environment and Public Works Committee that he would not contest or
seek to review the endangerment finding. There is an obvious reason why
somebody who is completely in tow to the fossil fuel industry would not
wish to revisit the endangerment finding; that is, because you would
drop an avalanche of scientific fact on your own head. You would be
obliged to put the phony little scrapes of climate denial that the
fossil fuel industry funds and propagates through a whole bunch of
front groups up against the real science that is agreed to by
essentially every legitimate scientific organization in America, that
is taught at every American State university in all 50 of our States,
that has formed the basis of our Defense Department's Quadrennial
Defense Review pointing out that climate change is a catalyst of
conflict and a national security risk, and that is recognized and
tracked by the National Laboratories of the United States that we fund.
Up against the phony-baloney nonsense that is propagated by the
fossil fuel industry, that is a rout. Of course, the last thing the
fossil fuel industry wants is a fair contest in a fair and factual
forum between the real science and their phony science denial. So, of
course, Pruitt doesn't want to kick that fight off, and, therefore, he
is now stuck with the endangerment finding.
I asked Mr. Wehrum about the endangerment finding, since it is a
finding related to greenhouse gases, which are subject to the Clean Air
Act, which would be his responsibility in
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this position at EPA. He said: I currently do not have a view on the
endangerment finding.
I bet he had a view when he was being paid by the Rubber
Manufacturers Association to consider emissions of carbon dioxide; I
bet he had a view when he was being paid by the American Forest & Paper
Association; and I am pretty sure he had a view when he was being paid
by the American Petroleum Institute. So this new, sudden absence of a
view seems improbable in the extreme. It looks like the best thing he
can say to not have to admit the real science, knowing perfectly well
that if he actually tried to deny it, that same avalanche of real
science would fall around his head.
In some respects, it is tragic that we are now in a situation in
which an agency of the U.S. Government has been handed over to the
polluters lock, stock, and barrel. They have been given absolute sway
to drive an industry agenda through the Agency that is supposed to be
protecting us.
In the balance of Pruitt and all of his little minions in this creep
show array of appointees, all you can expect from them is the industry
point of view, as close as they can deliver it, without stepping on any
of the factual or legal traps that will snap shut on them if they go a
little bit too far and actually step into a forum like a courtroom or a
contested proceeding where they are obliged to be under oath, where
there is a prospect of discovery, and where you have to meet the proper
standards for administrative rulemaking, such as based on ``substantial
evidence'' or not ``arbitrary and capricious.''
There have been two recent descriptions that have come out that put
the climate change problem into perspective. The first is the ``U.S.
Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Report,'' which
is part of the ``National Climate Assessment'' that Congress mandated
some years ago. The best scientists from 13 different agencies got
together, and over many, many months they put together a comprehensive
review of the science and of what is going on. The opening sentence is:
``The climate of the United States is strongly connected to the
changing global climate.''
A little sidebar on that--what is happening on climate change in the
United States is strongly connected to the change in global climate.
When you dump carbon emissions into the atmosphere, it is not just our
atmosphere; it is everybody's atmosphere. When China or Russia or India
dump carbon emissions into the atmosphere, they are not just hurting
their atmosphere; they are hurting our common atmosphere of the planet.
A little trick that Administrator Pruitt has developed is--in
calculating the harms of climate change--to look only at U.S. emissions
and look only at U.S. effects.
If you have an international problem, as our scientists say, strongly
connected to the change in global climate, what happens when you look
only at the American effects and look only at the American emissions?
What that means is that when you are scoring the harm of climate
change, you are cutting it down to a mere fraction of what actually
exists. You are cutting out the harm that other nations cause to us
with their emissions, scrubbing it right off the books, and you are
scrubbing off the harm that our emissions do to other nations,
scrubbing it right off the books. It doesn't change the harm, of
course; it just tweaks the accounting with a piece of rhetorical
trickery to help the fossil fuel industry not have to be accountable
for the actual harm it causes. That is what we have learned to expect
from the EPA--nothing about the actual harm that climate change causes
but accounting trickery to try to dial the number down so that a huge
majority fraction of the harm never even gets counted.
``This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is
extremely likely''--which is the highest level of scientific
certainty--``that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse
gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-
20th century.''
It goes on. It is not only that the evidence entirely shows ``that it
is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of
greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause,'' but when you look at what
the alternatives might be, here is what the next sentence says: ``For
the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative
explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.''
Not only is there an avalanche of evidence supporting the
determination that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are
causing the climate change we have observed, but when you look to see,
well, maybe there is another explanation, there is none, zero. It does
not exist. Why not? Because it has never been real--the phony science
on the other side. It has always been propaganda. That is why it is
featured on talk shows instead of peer-reviewed scientific
publications. That is why it comes through phony industry front groups
like the George C. Marshall Institute rather than real scientific
organizations. We have known that for a long time.
I see that another speaker has come to the floor. Let me conclude
with the recent statement, just in the last few days, of the Pontifical
Academy of Sciences. One of the strongest voices for addressing climate
change has been Pope Francis. Pope Francis not only sees it as a real
problem for our planet and for our care of God's creation, but he also
sees it as a justice issue, as a moral issue. The wealthier societies
are degrading the quality of life in poorer societies, shifting costs
and harm to them, which they are much more vulnerable to than we are,
in a cocoon of wealth and air conditioning and supermarkets and all of
that. He has been a remarkable voice for this.
One of the things he did was to set up this panel to take a look at
climate change and what it means for the planet. The document is called
``Declaration of the Health of People, Health of Planet and Our
Responsibility Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health Workshop.''
Here is its opening statement, which it calls the ``Statement of the
Problem.'' ``With unchecked climate change and air pollution, the very
fabric of life on Earth, including that of humans, is at grave risk.''
If you align the science that comes through the ``National Climate
Assessment'' and align the universities of our great country, the
national labs of our great country, the military experts in this area
in our great country, and now this international body pulled together
by Pope Francis, they all come to the same place. It is just here in
Congress, where the fossil fuel industry, through massive amounts of
political spending, has shut down responsible conversation about this
problem that there is any window for climate denial to creep back in--
and, of course, the ability of this administration, in tow to the
fossil fuel industry, to stick climate-denying fossil fuel operatives
into positions of public responsibility. This is a disgrace. The fact
that this body cannot stand up to them, cannot find patently
conflicted, patently unqualified nominations to be beyond the pale for
us is a terrible testament as to how the power of the fossil fuel
industry has corrupted our ability to perform our function in the
Senate.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island,
Senator Whitehouse, for his leadership. He has never given up on this,
and he will never give up. We have many important issues ahead, one of
which I am going to address--climate change--about this nominee and the
fact that every country in the world now, including Nicaragua and
Syria, have pledged to be part of this international climate change
agreement, which is so important for reducing greenhouse gases. I thank
Senator Whitehouse for carrying the torch on this for so long.
I join him today in rising to speak about the nominee who the Senate
is currently considering to lead the Environmental Protection Agency's
Office of Air and Radiation. If confirmed, Mr. William Wehrum will be
tasked with carrying out and managing critical Agency functions related
to controlling airborne pollution, improving air quality, monitoring
greenhouse gases, and overseeing energy efficiency standards.
By the way, I was always proud that the first bill I introduced to
the U.S. Senate when I got here was a bill with Olympia Snowe, who is
my Republican mentor. That bill required the Agency to start collecting
data on greenhouse
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gas emissions. I take this very personally. The Agency ended up
deciding to do it itself, as Senator Whitehouse is aware. But it was my
first bill, and I decided that was a good first bill. It was
bipartisan, and it got to the core of this issue that our country needs
to take responsibility, that we need to work with the rest of the
world. But most importantly, this is a long-term issue, shared by my
businesses in Minnesota, shared by everyone from hunters to
snowmobilers, to ice skaters in our State--the concern of our changing
climate and the effect it will have on our way of life.
There are two specific issues that Mr. Wehrum will be involved in
directing from the EPA that I wish to discuss: first, the renewable
fuel standards and, then, circle back to this issue of climate change.
Minnesota's agriculture is very important to me. We are the fifth
biggest ag State in the country. It is why I sought a seat on the
Senate Agriculture Committee and why I have consistently pushed for a
strong renewable standard. I believe we should be working in this body
to help the farmers and the workers of the Midwest, not the oil sheikhs
of the Middle East.
Recently, I led a letter with Senator Chuck Grassley, which was
signed by 38 Senators, calling on Administrator Pruitt to ensure that
the final rule for 2018 and 2019 sets blending targets that promote
growth in the biofuel sector and in our economy.
The final rule for 2017 followed congressional intent and required a
record amount of biofuel to be mixed into our transportation fuel
supply. The final rule this year should do the same. Reducing the blend
targets of advanced biofuels could shortchange the growth of clean
energy innovation and stifle the growth of the market for new biofuels.
So far the response from the administration in backing off these
plans, thanks to Senator Grassley's leadership, has been encouraging,
but the proof will be in the pudding when the rule is released before
the end of the month. I appreciate the work of Senator Grassley,
Senator Ernst, Senator Thune, and Senator Durbin--who is here with us
right now in the Chamber--and others who have worked on this Renewable
Fuel Standard, as well as my colleague Senator Franken.
Renewable fuels have become a homegrown economic generator for our
country. They reduce the environmental impact of our transportation and
energy sectors and cut our reliance on foreign oil. Every time a new
study is released on this subject, I become more and more convinced
that investments in renewable fuels are investments in our economy and
in the health of rural America.
Last year, a study conducted by ABF Economics showed that the ethanol
industry generated $7.37 billion in gross sales in 2015 for Minnesota
businesses and $1.6 billion in income for Minnesota households. Here is
a big one: The ethanol industry also supports over 18,000 full-time
jobs in Minnesota. I see the Presiding Officer is from the State of
Alaska. Just as he knows that the oil industry is important in our
State, the ethanol industry is important in the Midwest, and I believe
they can both coexist.
Just last weekend, I visited the Green Plains ethanol plant in
Minnesota to see one of the operations behind these impressive figures
and meet firsthand with some of the 60 people who are employed there.
One of the things I heard while in Fairmont was how policy instability
and delays have chilled investment over the years. Delays in releasing
the RFS rule in previous years has undercut the Green Plains' ability
to acquire necessary investments and create new employment
opportunities. The need for stable policy and the forward-looking
administration of the RFS is key to providing certainty for producers,
employees, and manufacturers, while unlocking billions of dollars of
investment in the biofuel sector.
We have to continue to build on the progress we have made of
expanding production capacity more than threefold since 2005 with
biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol, recycled waste, and other advanced
biofuels. This is no longer some kind of a niche industry. This is 10
percent of our fuel supply. That is why I am concerned with some of the
statements that Mr. Wehrum has made and some of the clients he has
represented in lawsuits against the EPA, many of whom sought to
undermine and weaken the RFS.
He was the counsel of record in several challenges to the RFS,
including the E15 waiver, which allows for blends of up to 15 percent
of ethanol in gasoline, something Senator Thune and I have worked on.
Yet most concerning was his role in a 2015 challenge to the requirement
that diesel fuel sold in my State of Minnesota contain at least 10
percent of biodiesel, or B10.
Let me say that this kind of principle and this policy were supported
by Democratic, Republican, and Independent Governors in Minnesota--from
Tim Pawlenty to Jesse Ventura to Mark Dayton. My State has been a
leader when it comes to the use of renewable fuels. We were the first
State in the Nation to pass a biodiesel blending law and the first
State in the Nation to require gasoline to be blended with 10 percent
of ethanol. We continue to be a national leader in the use of E85.
In 2008 the State legislature amended the Minnesota mandate--that is
when Tim Pawlenty was Governor--to gradually step up the required
biodiesel blend from 2 percent to 5 percent and eventually to 20
percent from 2012 to 2018. Now, according to the statute, the B10
mandate will double to B20 starting on May 1, 2018. With bipartisan
support and individual State responsibility, it is something that our
State did because we knew it could work.
Despite Mr. Wehrum's best efforts, the U.S. district court upheld
Minnesota's mandate on renewable biodiesel, which has been in the best
interest of rural economies and consumers. These advances are going to
help ag producers and rural manufacturing plants do even more for the
regional economy. The further ethanol and biodiesel take us the less
dependent we will be on foreign oil and the less of an impact our
transportation and energy sectors will have on the environment.
I have already discussed the climate change issue, and I see that
Senator Durbin is here.
Again, I will just reiterate that I am a former prosecutor. I believe
in evidence, and every week seems to bring fresh evidence of the damage
that climate change is already causing. Minnesota may be miles away
from the rising oceans, but the impacts are no less of a real threat to
my State. I did not like Mr. Wehrum's answers that he gave to these
questions during his hearing before the Environment and Public Works
Committee, especially when I asked if he believed that human activities
were the main driver of climate change and his response was: ``I
believe that's an open question.''
I do not think this nominee should be running this part of the
Agency, and we cannot sit back and ignore the evidence. We need to wake
up, take action, and turn the corner on the devastating effects of
climate change before it is too late.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The minority whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business until 11:15 a.m.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.