[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 59 (Thursday, April 12, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2106-S2110]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Nominations for the U.S. Department of Education
Mr. President, I would like to speak about nominations for the U.S.
Department of Education and the approval of them or, I should say,
their lack of approval.
It is no secret that Democrats in Congress hate President Trump. For
months, they have held up his nominees for key positions in the
government. This strategy may serve in their hatred of President Trump,
but it is harmful to our country.
One example is the nominee for the Federal Railroad Administration,
whose nomination was held up for months after he had been approved
unanimously by the committee of jurisdiction for his appointment in the
Federal Government. As a result, there have been multiple fatal crashes
in the railroad system--Republicans were on a trip when one of them
occurred--that may have been prevented had there been leadership on
that railroad commission.
We have a sense that there can be a consequence to this kind of
unremitting ``whatever Trump proposes we are going to oppose, no
matter, just because it is Trump'' when folks die in railroad
accidents. I will note, after the last set of fatalities, that hold was
lifted, and the nomination was allowed to proceed.
Sometimes it is not so clear that damage has occurred from this kind
of ``whatever Trump proposes we shall oppose.'' In multiple cases, it
involves the Department of Education. One example is the nomination of
BG Mitchell ``Mick'' Zais for Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department
of Education. President Trump nominated General Zais in October 2017.
It has been over 6 months since his nomination, and we still do not
have a Deputy Secretary of the Department of Education.
General Zais is qualified for the position. He served as South
Carolina's elected State superintendent of education, the president of
Newberry College, and as a commissioner on South Carolina's Commission
on Higher Education. He also served his country honorably and
faithfully as an infantry soldier in the U.S. Army for 31 years--again,
retiring as a brigadier general.
A little known fact about the general is that he is dyslexic--an
issue I care passionately about that affects 20 percent of our Nation's
population. He knows firsthand of the struggles of one with dyslexia
and how, with the proper evidence-based resources, our children with
dyslexia can learn to read and have as successful futures as any other.
Ensuring children with dyslexia have the resources they need to succeed
is a legislative priority for me and also will be for General Zais, as
he indicated, when he is finally confirmed.
Democrats have imposed 30 hours of debate on nominees they support by
forcing cloture votes. They have forced more cloture votes in the first
year of the Trump administration than in the entire first terms of the
last four Presidents combined. These delay tactics have consequences
for the rail system just as they do in the education of our children.
It is a tragedy that Democrats are blocking or playing games with our
children's futures.
One example--and it is not a very good example, not good for those
affected--is with the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or
NEPA, which released its Nation's Report Card. The results show that
our Nation's children have not made gains in reading and math. In 2017,
nationally, only 40 percent of fourth graders were considered
proficient in math, and only 36 percent were reading at grade 4 levels.
This is unacceptable. If a child learns to read in grades 1, 2, 3,
after that, he or she reads to learn, and if one can't read by the
fourth grade, one may never be able to read to learn as effectively as
one needs in order to succeed in today's economy. Democrats hate Donald
Trump so much, they would rather risk a child not learning to read than
to have their future prospects dimmed and easily approve a Trump
appointee.
Mr. President, the time is now to stop the obstruction. Let's put our
Nation's children's educational needs first and confirm the remaining
nominees to serve at the U.S. Department of Education.
This is not about Donald J. Trump; this is about the children of our
country who, if they don't learn to read or do math proficiently, will
have a future that is less than it should be, and that should be a
bipartisan concern.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rarely rise three times in the same day
to give a speech. This is a special day for me and maybe for the
Senate. But I want to assure my colleagues that the concerns many of us
have been expressing about the current chaos at the Environmental
Protection Agency and the nomination of Andrew Wheeler--the person who
could predictably replace the EPA Administrator--are not ours alone.
Editorial boards around the country, including those from newspapers in
Republican-leaning States, are expressing concerns regarding EPA
Administrator Scott Pruitt's recent slew of ethical lapses--it would be
charitable to call them lapses. It is these failings by Mr. Pruitt that
Andrew Wheeler will be expected to address if he is confirmed by the
Senate.
I can assure the citizens of all these States, the editorial boards
of all these papers, and all my colleagues that the Environment and
Public Works Committee has not considered the nomination of Andrew
Wheeler with these ethical failings in mind. Mr. Wheeler has been
nominated to serve as the individual who will oversee day-to-day
operations of an EPA currently in chaos. We have had no opportunity to
ask Mr. Wheeler about the Administrator's questionable behavior, nor
have we had a chance to ask him how he plans to right a ship that has
so clearly lost its way.
I am sobered but not shocked to read what people who have their
fingers on
[[Page S2107]]
the pulse in their communities have to say about the current leadership
in the Environmental Protection Agency. It is truly maddening and
deeply sad to see the indictments on an agency that we in Congress have
vested with the responsibility of protecting our children, supporting
our elders, and ensuring a world in which we and all the life around us
can thrive.
What are newspapers around the country saying about the leadership of
the Environmental Protection Agency these days?
As a kid growing up in Virginia, I never read the Virginian-Pilot in
Danville and Roanoke. This is what they said in Virginia through a
newspaper called the Virginian-Pilot on April 6, 2018, about a week
ago. The headline of the editorial is ``EPA's Pruitt a terrible
choice.''
They said:
Short of nominating an actual oil derrick or a landfill to
the post, President Donald Trump couldn't have done worse
than tapping Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental
Protection Agency.
They went on to say:
And yet, it's unlikely that his sinister approach to
managing the EPA will be Pruitt's undoing. Rather, it's
almost certain to be a comparatively banal brand of
corruption that is infuriatingly commonplace in the highest
echelons of the Trump administration.
The editorial goes on to say:
Having a director of the Environmental Protection Agency
wholly uninterested in protecting the environment is a
national embarrassment, and Americans deserve much better
than the worst option available.
The next quote comes from Charleston, WV, and it is from the West
Virginia Gazette-Mail. It is focused more on a favorite Presidential
theme.
Donald Trump campaign crowds loved to chant ``Drain the
swamp!'' But if ever there was a political swamp creature,
it's Scott Pruitt, the man Trump picked to head the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
On the issue of favoring his fellow Oklahomans on the EPA staff, the
Charleston Gazette-Mail editorial continued:
Despite the White House telling him not to give large
raises to two employees--
I think one raise was $29,000 and another was $56,000 per year--
--who followed him from Oklahoma, Pruitt did it anyway. He
used a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act that's
supposed to let the EPA hire experts quickly in an emergency,
not give taxpayer-funded raises to political lackeys.
Nor did the Administrator's security concerns pass muster. The
Charleston Gazette-Mail went on:
Pruitt is clearly very worried about his security; he has
tripled the size of his security detail, and is the first EPA
administration to have 24/7 security--again, at taxpayer
expense. That security detail includes some EPA agents who
would otherwise be investigating environmental crimes, rather
than protecting their snowflake boss.
Those are the newspaper's words, not mine.
The editorial goes on to say:
Pruitt's predecessors, Gina McCarthy and Lisa Jackson--who
were demonized repeatedly by West Virginia politicians, among
others--flew coach, with a much smaller security presence.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail editorial concludes:
There are many reasons why Scott Pruitt shouldn't be
leading the EPA, primarily that he doesn't seem to believe in
science and is more interested in helping big business,
than, you know, protecting the environment. But his
obvious belief that taxpayer money and resources are given
to him for his personal benefit is a big reason, as well.
Let's go down to Texas. The Houston Chronicle weighed in on this. I
don't know if we have a poster on this one, but here we go. This is
what they said at the Houston Chronicle on April 6, this month. The
headline of the editorial is ``The time has come for EPA Administrator
Scott Pruitt to resign.''
It reads in part:
On the next episode of the Trump administration's reality
show, the latest character the President needs to vote off
the island is Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
Scott Pruitt.
Indeed, it's hard to figure out how Pruitt has survived so
far into this season. The host of this show says he wants to
drain the swamp, but the EPA boss is so deep in the muck, he
could play the creature from the Black Lagoon.
The Houston Chronicle concluded:
So Pruitt seems destined to become the next character cut
from Trump's chaotic reality show. Dropping this bad actor
can't happen fast enough.
Even in Mr. Pruitt's home State, some people are fed up with his
antics. The Tulsa World editorialized in this way--this was on April 6.
The title is ``With a controversial agenda, EPA Administrator Scott
Pruitt must live above suspicion.''
In part, the editorial reads:
Some of the latest accusations are embarrassing. He should
have known better, and he may pay a heavy consequence for
them.
The paper goes on:
From his first day in office, Pruitt has been under the
microscope of scrutiny from those who disagree with the
president's thinking on environmental issues. If that's not
entirely fair, it also should have been obvious to Pruitt
that he would have to live a life that was above suspicion.
In ways that have nothing to do with money, he couldn't
afford to fly first class.
The second Oklahoma newspaper, the Edmund Sun, had more particular
advice for the President, along these lines:
Donald Trump has never needed help miring himself in
controversy, and that was true before he ever moved into the
White House. But he could do himself a favor, and gain some
begrudging respect from detractors, by drop-kicking Scott
Pruitt to the curb.
The fact that he defied a White House decision should by
itself make Pruitt ripe for termination. Staffers and Cabinet
members far more ethical than Pruitt have been shown the
door. Trump should cut him loose, and get rid of the rope and
the scissors he used to make the snip.
Under the best of circumstances and even in the most accountable
administrations, consideration of a nominee to serve as EPA Deputy
Administrator is a huge responsibility for this body. As the Miami
Herald rightly points out, this is no normal circumstance and surely
not a normal EPA that Mr. Wheeler would enter. He would have to be
ready for a job that none of us can say at this time that he is ready
to tackle--cleaning up a huge mess at EPA.
The Miami Herald notes:
The flurry of ethical questions surrounding Environmental
Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is now a
blizzard. The emerging picture is of a chief environmental
officer not only fighting a war on science as he promotes oil
and gas interests but also arrogantly betraying the public
trust.
The Miami Herald concludes:
Time and again, Trump has accepted arrogance and
incompetence on his staff as long as loyalty remains beyond
question.
Meanwhile, in Akron, OH, in its editorial entitled ``Deep in the
Swamp at the EPA,'' on April 8, the Akron Beacon Journal notes that
some folks in the White House knew just how bad Scott Pruitt was.
John Kelly showed the right instinct.
John Kelly is the Chief of Staff.
According to news accounts, the White House chief of staff
advised President Trump that Scott Pruitt, the administrator
of the Environmental Protection Agency, needed to step down
in view of his ethical misdeeds and spending excesses.
The Beacon Journal concludes:
Scott Pruitt should go. This isn't about policymaking,
dismaying and damaging as the direction of the agency has
been. The problem is his conduct in office. Pruitt has abused
the public trust, in the way he has spent taxpayer dollars,
in the perception he invites.
Apparently, Mr. Pruitt is not showing folks in the Show Me State what
they want to see in an EPA Administrator either. In an editorial on
April 7, 2018, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said:
There are many good reasons why President Donald Trump
should fire Scott Pruitt as administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency. Top on our list are his
multiple failures to do his job protecting the environment.
He's gone so far as to say that if global warming is real, it
might be a good thing.
Do you know what. I wholeheartedly agree with the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch.
In conclusion, I share these editorials because I think they
illustrate the situation that Mr. Wheeler will face should he be
confirmed, and that is a very difficult situation. As the No. 2 person
at EPA, Mr. Wheeler will be responsible for fullfilling the Agency's
mission and doing so in a way that earns, once again, the public's
trust. There is a long way to go to regain that trust, and Mr. Wheeler
will have a Herculean task in front of him to help the Administrator do
so, should he be confirmed today.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
[[Page S2108]]
Ms. CANTWELL. 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. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to voice my opposition to the
nomination of Andrew Wheeler to be Deputy Administrator for the
Environmental Protection Agency.
The Senators standing up this afternoon to fight this nomination are
not just opposing Mr. Wheeler. We are trying to shine a light on the
fact that this administration has one of the worst environmental
records in history. And you don't have to take my word for it because
this unprecedented assault on our Nation's bedrock environmental laws
has drawn strong criticism from former Democrat and Republican
Environmental Protection Agency Administrators.
The American public overwhelmingly supports the laws and regulations
that protect our air and water. And my constituents don't buy the false
trade-off between protecting the environment and jobs. To them they
come hand in hand. The facts on the ground have proven that these are
red herring arguments.
There are so many examples of how this administration's disdain for
science has led them to try to undo decades of progress on the
environment. I want to focus on three issues that are particularly
damaging and serve as an indication of why Mr. Wheeler's nomination and
record are so troubling.
First is the example of Mr. Wheeler lobbying on behalf of fossil fuel
interests. My concern is that Mr. Wheeler would have a prominent role
in reviewing the air pollution rules that govern coal plants, rules
that he got paid millions of dollars to help attack.
A number of press reports have exposed how one of Mr. Wheeler's
biggest lobbying clients, Murray Energy, was a driving force behind
Secretary Perry's ill-considered resilience proposal. That proposal
ignored the Energy Department's own staff report and was an attempt to
try to say that coal was the only reliable source of energy for the
electricity grid, which would have forced citizens to pay more on their
utility bills. They said that is a wrong conclusion. And it was a
transparent attempt to try to prop up one of the administration's
favorite energy sources, which really would have made everything more
expensive for consumers and certainly would have changed the focus of
what we need to do to decarbonize our energy system.
But the biggest problem here was how the proposal would have hit
consumers, as I said, with billions of dollars in added costs. Bailing
out old coal plants wasn't just bad policy; it was a breathtaking raid
on consumer pocketbooks. The regional grid manager found that the
Secretary's proposal would nearly double the cost of wholesale energy
in the Nation's largest electricity market.
Fortunately, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously
rejected this proposal. But if Mr. Wheeler comes to EPA as the No. 2,
what other misguided proposals like this are they going to propose or
try to fight, even though the science within the own agencies says they
are wrongheaded? How much time will we have to waste exposing these bad
ideas? We should instead be making investments in policy and
infrastructure that will help us be more competitive in the future.
I am also troubled by the administration's backward view on how the
United States can achieve so-called energy dominance by focusing more
on coal. In my assessment, the days of this strategy are numbered.
Selling away our cheap natural gas to foreign buyers. Or eking a
little more life out of our grandfathered coal plants. Or drilling, as
the administration has proposed, in every part of the United States and
off our shores, is not the way to be competitive for the future. I am
concerned that Mr. Wheeler holds and will support these backward views.
When he was criticizing the Paris Climate Agreement, he called it a
``sweetheart deal'' for China because it gave them a manufacturing
edge, but he really got it backwards.
That is because China itself has been investing in renewable energy.
By 2040, it will have invested over $6 trillion in clean energy
technologies, according to the International Energy Agency. China also
adopted a 5-year solar energy plan calling for 105 gigawatts of solar
capacity by 2020. They have proposed an aggressive stance moving
forward, and I want to make sure that U.S. companies who have great
technology get a fair crack at making investments there and
particularly in the area of energy efficiency, which is already
accounting for about a $2.2 trillion investment in 2016.
So we know that we can move forward on a cleaner energy economy, and
we want to know that we have the leadership that are going to support
this critical transition. I am perhaps most troubled that, during his
confirmation hearing, Mr. Wheeler refused to acknowledge the
indisputable reality that humans are the cause of dangerous
accumulation of greenhouse gases.
The fact that greenhouse gases are going to warm our planet and cause
acidity in our oceans is something my State knows well.
In Washington, climate change has serious consequences for human
health and our economy. Climate change has resulted in extreme weather
patterns, putting lives and property in danger. It has impacted water
quality, and it has caused other impacts to our salmon and shellfish
industries, big parts of our seafood economy. Climate change has
created drought conditions, has jeopardized our farm economy, and it is
even changing the chemistry of Puget Sound.
Mr. President, responding to climate change is more than just an
environmental issue. It is an economic imperative.
Senator Collins and I requested from the Government Accountability
Office an analysis about the full costs of climate change.
That is because, after seeing how it impacted us with fires, how it
impacted our shellfish industry, how it impacted so much of our
coastline, we wanted to know how much climate is costing taxpayers.
Well, the GAO report said it will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion
in the next 10 to 15 years.
So I know that Mr. Wheeler thinks this may not be part of his day
job, but rolling back strong environmental laws that help us move
forward will put us further and further behind and cost us billions of
dollars more than we need to be paying.
We need to uphold these critical environmental standards and laws
that protect our clean air and clean water so that we can make
progress, so that we can diversify our economy, and so that we can make
the right investments.
I believe Mr. Wheeler is the wrong choice for this position. I think
he is the wrong person to help us meet those standards.
We need a Deputy Administrator who isn't there trying to just jam
coal down the throats of American consumers and businesses, but rather
advocating for the next generation of Americans, who will need to be
able to compete and compete in a cost-effective way.
I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no on Andrew Wheeler to be
the Deputy Administrator at EPA.
I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, in Federalist Paper No. 76, Alexander
Hamilton wrote that it was the job of the Senate to ``prevent the
appointment of unfit characters.'' That is certainly the mission for
which we have responsibility today--to make sure that the unfit
characters do not have roles of power and influence within our
government.
Andrew Wheeler, the nominee who is before us for the No. 2 job at the
Environmental Protection Agency, raises a series of questions and
concerns related to whether or not he is fit for office. This is a man
whose entire career working for the fossil fuel industry stands in
direct opposition to the mission of the Environmental Protection
Agency--a mission to protect the health of the American people and the
well-being of our planet.
At such a volatile moment for the EPA, when the Agency is plagued by
scandal, ethical misbehavior, and pandering to polluters, this
nomination deserves the closest of scrutiny. After all, it is quite
possible that, before long, whoever fills the role of No. 2 at the EPA
could be acting in the No. 1 spot.
[[Page S2109]]
It is clear that Andrew Wheeler is not fit to be that person.
When President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection
Agency in 1970, he recognized that we all share ``a profound commitment
to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the
Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.''
For more than 47 years, the EPA has worked under Democratic
Presidents and Republican Presidents to protect our natural environment
and preserve our planet as a habitable and hospitable place. That has
included controlling toxic and poisonous chemicals, improving air and
water quality, and enhancing vehicle efficiency and emissions control.
The list of EPA's accomplishments goes on and on, but it can be summed
up like this: Americans value clean air. Americans value clean water.
Scott Pruitt does not, and Mr. Wheeler does not.
Administrator Pruitt has turned his longstanding disdain for the EPA
into a crusade to destroy it. Think about the hard work of protecting
our air and our water. There is a lot that goes into that. You can
think about the equivalence of constructing a house. You need to have
somebody who knows the foundation, knows the plumbing, knows the
wiring, knows the carpentry, knows the drywall, and knows the roofing.
You have to combine all of that with someone to get the windows
installed right and the insulation installed right. It is a lot of work
to create a structure that protects our air and water from the
thousands of chemicals that can do it harm, but it only takes one
person to knock down that carefully constructed house--one person, one
wrecking ball.
Scott Pruitt is that wrecking ball in the EPA, knocking down the
carefully constructed work of decades of efforts by some of the
Nation's leading scientists and most dedicated team members.
There is a lot of frustration among those dedicated scientists, and
700 employees have left or have been forced out. Critical clean air and
clean water regulations have been stalled or left in limbo. Enforcement
of existing regulations has virtually disappeared. Regionally, EPA
offices have been routinely stripped of the power to investigate, while
advisory committees that have usually been made up by scientific,
objective individuals are now being filled with industry shills. To put
it bluntly, under Scott Pruitt, the EPA is conducting a war against
clean air and clean water. This is really a shameful situation, and
that is just the policy side.
Then we have the ethical side. There is the Administrator's desire to
waste our taxpayer money on $40,000 private phone booths, first-class
travel, and swanky accommodations; the Administrator's determination to
retaliate against those who have pointed out the restrictions that he
is violating; and an Administrator who has increased the salaries of
his friends in an unapproved fashion. There is little to think that any
of this would change with Andrew Wheeler in either the No. 2 or No. 1
position.
It starts with the fact that neither man takes seriously the profound
threat to our planet from carbon pollution. I believe that these
individuals are smart, that they actually know the enormous damage that
carbon pollution is doing to our planet.
After all, it is hard to miss. You can see it this last year in the
ferocity of Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Harvey. Why were they so
fierce? Because 90 percent of the heat produced by climate chaos was
trapped by the oceans, and that hotter ocean energizes the storms to a
higher level of impact. You can see them in the forest fires that raged
in Montana, across Oregon, and down into California. Year after year,
the fire season is longer and fiercer. There are more forests burned.
You can see it in the insect population. You can see it in the
mosquitoes that carry Zika. You can see it in the success of the pine
beetles, when it is too warm to kill them in the winter. So they do
great, and the trees don't. You can see it in the oysters that now have
to have the water in which they are born be artificially buffered
because it is now too acidic for baby oysters.
And why is it too acidic? Because the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide
from the air, creating carbonic acid.
It is hard to miss. It is hard to imagine when you see the ocean,
where so much carbonic acid has been placed through our ocean through
polluted air that it has changed the acidity of the ocean, but that is
exactly what it has done.
Now, the EPA does a lot of wonderful work under a normal
administration, be it Democratic or Republican. It tracks greenhouse
emissions. It works on money-saving regulations, like renewable fuel
standard programs. It conducts analyses to compare different policies
to see which one would be more effective and what the range of impacts
would be. It conducts world-class research on the science. It partners
with States and local communities and governments on efficiency and
renewable energy. But that is under a normal administration and a
normal Administrator. There is no partnering now. It is just simply the
wrecking ball.
Scott Pruitt said scientists disagree about the extent of global
warming in connection to the actions of mankind. Actually, NASA has
very precise estimates or recordings of the changes in the carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere and the temperature changes that are
occurring from that.
You can find people, primarily those who are funded by the fossil
fuel industry, who dispute that and sow confusion. It is certainly the
strategy of the fossil fuel folks, who are choosing their greed over
our planet. They are selling out America, and those who shill for them
are selling out America.
They say: Well, you know, out of 100 scientists, we can find 2 or 3
who disagree. Well, how often do you have somebody who goes to 97
doctors and have them say: You have cancer. And they say: Oh, but,
wait; I can find one doctor somewhere. If I pay them enough, they will
say I don't have cancer, and then I am healed--except that they
wouldn't be healed and they would soon be dead.
In Oregon, we have seen the impact on the Klamath Basin, the worst
ever droughts time after time over the last 15 years. Talk to the
people in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin
Islands, whose communities were devastated by last year's hurricanes.
In the last 10 years, the time I have been in office, we have seen
half the coral reefs around the world either die or be deeply damaged--
in the time since I was elected in 2008. As to the fact that our
economists have calculated the monetary terms of damage for the United
States from last year's storms and fires to be well over $300 billion,
the fact that quality of life would be profoundly affected by the
movement of diseases, the fact that the moose are dying in New
Hampshire and lobsters are migrating north from Maine, none of that
matters because these folks keep coming back and saying: You know, it
is just not clear what is happening. It is not even an understanding of
the basic scientific principle. Really? That is just such a lie.
As far back as 1959, Edward Teller, the eminent scientist, was
warning folks in the petroleum industry. When he gave his speech at the
100th anniversary of the petroleum industry, he said: ``First of all,
these energy resources will run short as we use up more and more of the
fossil fuels.'' True enough, it turns out that there is a lot more than
anyone thought in 1959. But then he said, second, that it turns out
that carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels has a big problem.
You can look through it and you can't smell it so it doesn't seem
like a pollutant, but it turns out it traps heat. He proceeded to say
that would be a big problem because it would melt ice in the world and
raise the sea levels and that would flood our cities. He didn't have
all of the science that has been generated since 1959, but he had a
basic understanding of the physics of the problem.
What have we seen? We have seen, from that time until now, a 25-
percent increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that is a big
deal. So we have seen, year after year, it become hotter and hotter. In
fact, 2015, 2016, and 2017 were the three hottest years ever recorded.
In fact, 17 of the 18 hottest years on record occurred within the last
18 years. Yet these individuals stand up and say: Do not worry. Be
happy. There is no problem.
[[Page S2110]]
But there is a big problem, and putting folks whose bread is buttered
by the fossil fuel industry in charge of clean air and clean water is a
colossal mistake for our Nation.
Mr. Pruitt's association with the fossil fuel industry is well
documented. He went as far as to send a letter to the EPA on his
stationery accusing regulators of overestimating how much air pollution
energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in Oklahoma were
causing. The letter was written almost word-for-word by a company, not
by a scientific expert, nor did it have input from scientific experts.
This type of cozy relationship has continued throughout his tenure at
the EPA. Take, for instance, his efforts to stall or eliminate
regulations, delay implementations of new ones to help polluters at the
expense of the health, safety, and livelihood of millions of Americans.
He has issued a memorandum saying the regional EPA offices first have
to seek permission from headquarters before investigating polluters,
investigating violations, or requesting information. So he has sought
to really completely stop the investigation into malfeasance and
misconduct damaging our environment--all to help his associates who are
in private industry.
The list goes on and on.
We see the same thing with Mr. Wheeler working so closely as a
lobbyist for the same fossil fuel industry; specifically, Murray
Energy. How can you say an individual will enforce the rules when he
represents the industry? That is the challenge.
Our U.S. President said he was going to drain the swamp, but Scott
Pruitt is the swamp. He is the person who is proceeding to fail to
enforce our clean air and clean water laws. He is the person who is
stopping his team from investigating violations. He is the person who
is allowing his friends to have their pay increased, or actively
working to increase their pay, when it is outside of the regulation. He
is the person wasting our taxpayer money in all kinds of ways that have
been documented, from security details to trains of cars blowing lights
so he can get someplace in the city 5 minutes faster, violating the
rules; demoting people who try to hold him accountable--every possible
ethical and professional violation.
The nominee before us is a straight backup to that kind of
misconduct. He should absolutely not be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
He should not get a single vote from a single Member here because the
American people want the rules on clean air and clean water enforced.
So let's vote for enforcement.