[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 12 (Thursday, January 21, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S92-S94]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO TEAM INHOFE

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, we recently said goodbye to a lot of 
really good, hard-working men and women from the previous 
administration, and I want to highlight a few of them.
  We refer to them--some of my friends and some of my enemies refer to 
them as the ``Inhofe mafia.'' It comes from the committees that I have 
chaired, both the Armed Services Committee as well as the Environment 
and Public Works Committee. But anyway, they are really a great bunch 
of people.
  I am going to start with Andrew Wheeler. Andrew Wheeler was with me 
for a number of years--14 years--before he became the Director of the 
EPA. Here is a guy who was nominated to be the Administrator. At that 
time, I said that there is no one in America who is as qualified as 
Andrew Wheeler for this job. The first job he had out of law school was 
with the EPA. When he was nominated to be Administrator, I kind of gave 
his whole life history.
  All of my Senate colleagues know Andy and have known him for a long 
period of time--Democrats and Republicans. He has worked for me in the 
Senate as well as becoming one of my ``has-beens,'' as we refer to 
people who used to be with me and are still my good friends.
  Andy started in my personal office as chief counsel and went on to 
serve as the staff director and chief counsel during my time as 
chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. He has decades 
of experience and is one of the most skilled energy and environmental 
policy experts I have ever come in contact with, and I am immensely 
proud of what he has been able to accomplish throughout his career, but 
particularly as EPA Administrator.
  Andy understood that the EPA's mission is to implement the laws that 
are passed by Congress for the American people. The EPA's job is not to 
legislate. A lot of people think that. That is our job, to legislate, 
and then he carries it out, and he did really just a great job with 
that.
  Contrary to what many on the left say Republicans want, we do want 
clean air and clean water and clean land, and Andy proved that he could 
accomplish that without burdensome overregulation. During his time at 
the EPA, he spearheaded a number of the rules and deregulatory actions 
that brought important relief to American job creators while protecting 
our environment.
  He rolled back the economy standards on cars that were created to try 
to force Americans to drive vehicles they don't want to drive and that 
they can't afford. In its replacement, Andy developed the SAFE vehicles 
rule, which expands consumer choice and lowers the price of vehicles.
  Andy also repealed and replaced the waters of the United States rule, 
or WOTUS. On the WOTUS rule, if you talk to any of the agricultural 
groups--I am talking about the Farm Bureau and other agricultural 
groups--they would say that was the rule we really had to do something 
about. States like mine don't need Washington bureaucrats imposing 
their radical regulations like WOTUS on people who know the waters 
better than they do. It is not an overstatement when I say that this 
was probably the greatest regulatory burden facing Oklahoma's farmers, 
landowners, and ranchers during the Obama administration. I was proud 
to see WOTUS repealed by the navigable waters protection rule, which 
provided a clean and lawful definition of waters of the United States 
and doesn't try to overregulate the arid parts of the State.
  Oklahoma is an arid State. If you go out to the western part of 
Oklahoma, the panhandle of Oklahoma, it is really arid. If you take 
that regulation out of the hands of the States and give it to the 
Federal Government, there is always a concern by our farmers and 
ranchers in Oklahoma and across the Nation that they would turn these 
arid areas into wetlands.
  Another of the regulatory overhauls accomplished by Andy was for the 
affordable clean energy or the ACE rule that replaced the illegal Clean 
Power Plan, which regulated emissions of coal-fired powerplants. I had 
long been critical of the Clean Power Plan and led the charge against 
it in the Senate.

[[Page S93]]

Like most of that era of the rules, it was a Federal power grab, and it 
would have sent Americans' electricity bills soaring, and we all knew 
that. But we made it history when we repealed and replaced the Clean 
Power Plan with the ACE rule. It was good. Not only did this rule help 
Americans' electricity costs be affordable, it is expected to benefit 
the environment as well.
  Just last month, the EPA finalized another big rule that requires EPA 
to prepare a cost-benefit analysis before coming up with new 
regulations. How is that at all unreasonable? Americans shake their 
heads, and they wonder why we would pass things that don't have any 
kind of a cost-benefit analysis. What is it going to cost? What kind of 
sacrifices are we going to have to make? Well, we put that into effect, 
and I think it is something people are very thankful for.
  Throughout his tenure, Andy has been focused on what is in the best 
interests of the taxpayers and not just the Washington bureaucrats. 
That is clear with this rule and countless others.
  You know, one of the good things about Andy, as I already mentioned, 
is that he knows more about the process than anybody else does--more 
about the EPA. He has always been a star, and he started at the bottom. 
When he was first put into that office and was confirmed as EPA 
director, he gave a speech over at the EPA. He didn't know I was there. 
I went over there to hear it. He had 300 people at the EPA all 
listening to him and looking at him and saying: There is room at the 
top for me. Here is a guy who started at the very bottom and ended up 
as director of the EPA. It didn't go unnoticed. Everybody realized 
that.
  So I would ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an E&E 
News article from July 2018, which details a number of the former staff 
people and their backgrounds
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             [July 6, 2018]

              `Brave New World' as Team Inhofe Takes Over

                          (By Robin Bravender)

       It's official: Alumni of the best-known climate skeptic in 
     Congress are leading EPA.
       Former aides to Sen. Jim lnhofe (R-Okla.) have helped shape 
     President Trump's energy policy agenda since even before he 
     was elected. Many of them quickly landed top spots at EPA and 
     in the White House, and Inhofe alumnus Ryan Jackson helped 
     shepherd Scott Pruitt through the confirmation process before 
     becoming his chief of staff at the agency last year.
       But now an ex-Inhofe staffer is taking the reins as Pruitt 
     leaves under a cloud of controversies.
       Andrew Wheeler, who steps in as EPA's chief on Monday, was 
     staff director and chief counsel to Inhofe on the Senate 
     Environment and Public Works Committee for much of the George 
     W. Bush administration.
       Jackson, a longtime friend of Wheeler, is expected to 
     remain as EPA's chief of staff after Pruitt's exit. Jackson--
     a native Oklahoman--was an Inhofe aide who worked as EPW 
     staff director and Inhofe's chief of staff.
       Brittany Bolen became the acting head of EPA's policy shop 
     after Samantha Dravis left earlier this year. Bolen was 
     Republican counsel to Inhofe on the EPW Committee. Daisy 
     Letendre, a communications adviser in the policy office, was 
     Inhofe's communications director.
       And former Inhofe counsel Mandy Gunasekara is now principal 
     deputy assistant administrator in EPA's air office.
       Republicans and some energy industry lobbyists say Inhofe's 
     alumni network brings deep policy knowledge to EPA and is 
     well-positioned to bring calm to an agency that has been 
     mired in controversies under Pruitt.
       ``With these Inhofe staff, you get all of the Pruitt policy 
     and none of the Pruitt baggage,'' said an energy lobbyist and 
     former congressional staffer.
       It makes sense that ex-Inhofe aides would populate EPA 
     under a Republican administration, the lobbyist said, given 
     Inhofe's long tenure as the top Republican on the Senate 
     committee charged with overseeing the agency. ``He has hired 
     a lot of smart people to work for him who were goqd and have 
     gone on to do various other things,'' the lobbyist said.
       Those staffers have a history of working closely with 
     Democrats on Capitol Hill, that person added: ``I think that 
     the Democrat staff and members believe that Inhofe and the 
     Inhofe staffers treated them fairly when they were up 
     there.''
       They also share an appreciation for process, said Matt 
     Dempsey, Inhofe's former communications director.
       He expects his former colleagues to take a ``back to 
     basics'' approach at EPA. ``It's not necessarily a political 
     agenda, but it's a policy-based agenda,'' he said.
       That contrasts with how many people viewed Pruitt, who was 
     widely thought to be trying to use EPA as a stepping stool to 
     reach higher political office.
       Under Wheeler, ``the whole tone is going to be different,'' 
     the energy lobbyist said. ``People are going to perceive that 
     Andy is going to spend his time on policy and not thinking 
     about whether he's the next senator from Oklahoma.''
       But as Republicans and many in industry are celebrating the 
     rise of the Inhofe crowd at EPA, some on the left are furious 
     that disciples of the Senate's most vocal climate change 
     skeptic--famous for throwing a snowball on the Senate floor 
     to try to disprove global warming--are leading the agency 
     tasked with protecting the environment.
       ``It is a brave new world of pro-fossil-fuel ideologues who 
     seem not to care about anything but industry profits, the 
     rest of the country be damned,'' said Bill Snape, an attorney 
     at the Center for Biological Diversity. ``We're all getting 
     hit in the head by the snowball at this point. It's obviously 
     disturbing'.''

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, at the top of the list was my chief of 
staff, Ryan Jackson. Like Andy, Ryan also went on to be my staff 
director of the EPW Committee, Environment and Public Works, where he 
helped negotiate bipartisan bills for highway, water, and 
infrastructure to environmental bills like TSCA. Remember, that was the 
one that had the chemical regulations. In his role he helped me 
negotiate with former California Senator Barbara Boxer.
  This is kind of interesting. I think the Presiding Officer would find 
this to be interesting. Barbara Boxer and I--for many, many years, 
every time the Republicans were in the majority, I was the chairman of 
that committee, and she was the ranking member. Every time the 
Democrats were in control, she was the chairman, and I was the ranking 
member. So we worked together, and we accomplished more. I won't 
divulge where the meeting is, but there is a meeting that Republicans 
have historically had at 12:15 p.m. on a Tuesday with all the members 
of the committees, the chairmen. We would talk about what we have done, 
and when it was my turn, I would say: Now from the committee that 
actually gets things done. That was Barbara Boxer and I. No two people 
could be further apart philosophically than Barbara Boxer and I, yet we 
were able to do that with the help of Ryan Jackson.
  I actually hired him when he was still in college. He left my office 
early 2017 to go to work as Chief of Staff at the EPA, where he was a 
central player in the implementation of the last administration's 
policies.
  In February, he left the EPA, which was when Mandy Gunasekara took 
office as chief of staff. Mandy worked for me in the EPW Committee for 
several years as the majority counsel. In that role she helped me craft 
air and other policy priorities. While at the EPA, she has been 
instrumental in advancing priorities like the ACE rule that I mentioned 
earlier. She is a skilled and devoted public servant, and I am proud of 
all that she has done to advance policies that benefit all Americans.
  A number of others of what I refer to as my ``has-beens'' have served 
at the EPA over the last 4 years. Susan Bodine was the chief counsel on 
EPW and went on to serve as Assistant Administrator in the Office of 
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
  Brittany Bolen was counsel for the EPW, Environment and Public Works 
Committee, and went on to serve as Associate Administrator for the 
Office of Policy.
  Byron Brown was senior counsel at the EPW and went on to serve as 
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.
  Then there is Daisy Letendre. She was communications director in my 
office and went on to serve as a Senior Advisor in the Office of 
Policy.
  So I am proud of all my ``has-beens'' and the big impact that they 
have had on our country. We are grateful for their service, past and 
present--especially that of Andrew Wheeler and Ryan Jackson. I say to 
our friends Wheeler and Jackson: Thank you and good luck in your next 
endeavors. You did great work.
  Let me just mention one last thing. I urge the Biden administration 
not to repeal a lot of the rules and regulations and deregulation 
initiatives that gave us the economy that was unprecedented during the 
time before the pandemic set in. It would be devastating to our 
country, which is already trying to recover from the pandemic. Now is 
not

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the time to impose costly new regulations on Americans and the job 
creators in this country. Everyone knows that this pandemic has wreaked 
havoc on our economy, and I am certain that, had we not had the virus, 
we would have broken even more economic records than we already had.
  Prior to the pandemic, we had the best economy of our life. We set 
records, with small business optimism reaching the highest level on 
record in its 45-year history and unemployment hitting a 50-year low of 
3.5 percent. We have always said in the past that full employment is 4 
percent. We brought it down that entire year, and in February of 2020 
it was down to 3.5 percent. It never had happened before. The median 
household income rose to a record high in 2019, the highest since 1967. 
The wealth of American families rose. That is an indicator. It rose to 
the highest level in history. So these good things were happening, and 
I would urge this administration not to repeal some of these 
regulations. Repealing some of these regulations would simply reverse 
gains like these.
  I urge the Biden administration to work with me and others to reach 
compromises on regulations that would benefit all Americans. That seems 
to be pretty reasonable, and I think that is a good program to do. 
Let's give it a try. OK?
  With that, 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.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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