[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 72 (Tuesday, April 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2204-S2205]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NOMINATION OF JANET GARVIN McCABE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on another matter, this week the 
Senate is set to vote on President Biden's nominee to be Deputy 
Administrator of the EPA. This nominee actually needs no introduction 
for my fellow Kentuckians and our neighbors in coal country.
  But for those less familiar, Janet McCabe was the chief author of the 
Clean Power Plan that President Obama unveiled back in 2015. Well, 6 
years and thousands of coal industry jobs later, Ms. McCabe is set to 
join an administration whose job-killing policies would make the Obama 
EPA blush.
  Of course, President Biden's War on Coal predates his administration. 
Back in 2008, as a candidate for the Vice Presidency, he insisted there 
would be ``no coal plants here in America. Build them, if they're going 
to build them, over there,'' obviously, meaning some other country.
  Sadly, this was one area where the Obama administration, 
unfortunately, kept its promises. It was a terrible time to be a 
working American whose livelihood the Democrats happened to dislike. 
But our new President's leftward sprint is set to make these bad old 
days merely the warmup act.

[[Page S2205]]

  Remember, rejoining the Paris climate agreement was a day one 
priority for this administration--this unenforceable deal whose own 
signatories largely ignored their commitments for the past 5 years, the 
deal that proved unable to keep China from significantly increasing its 
greenhouse gas emissions and proved unnecessary for the United States 
to decrease our own. We decreased our own.
  But despite it all, the administration is rushing back in to signal 
virtue on the international stage. Here at home, they are rolling out 
policy after policy that would cost American families quite dearly.
  The President signed away thousands of jobs by canceling the Keystone 
XL Pipeline. The authors of the Green New Deal boast about the radical 
social engineering they have seeded into the administration's 
legislative proposals. The infrastructure plan they have rolled out 
would pick winners and losers in automotive manufacturing and aim to 
purge the electrical grid of the most reliable and affordable forms of 
domestic power.
  Of course, despite it all, carbon emissions don't respect national 
boundaries, so all the unilateral sacrifices this administration is 
eager to impose on blue-collar families won't make a dent in global 
emissions if our adversaries just keep on roaring right past us.
  And now the Biden climate team is hoping to add a proven veteran from 
the War on Coal. The President campaigned suggesting he wouldn't owe 
the far left anything, but he is choosing to govern like he owes them 
everything.
  I will oppose the McCabe nomination and would urge my colleagues to 
do the same.

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