[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 45 (Monday, March 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1144-S1148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLOTURE MOTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination
of Executive Calendar No. 726, Shalanda D. Young, of
Louisiana, to be Director of the Office of Management and
Budget.
Charles E. Schumer, Alex Padilla, Christopher Murphy,
Edward J. Markey, Gary C. Peters, Brian Schatz, Jack
Reed, Tammy Duckworth, John W. Hickenlooper, Sheldon
Whitehouse, Tim Kaine, Richard Blumenthal, Christopher
A. Coons, Margaret Wood Hassan, Patrick J. Leahy,
Debbie Stabenow.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
nomination of Shalanda D. Young, of Louisiana, to be Director of the
Office of Management and Budget, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr.
Blumenthal), the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator
from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from California (Mrs.
Feinstein), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator
from Georgia (Mr. Ossoff), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), and
the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) are necessarily absent.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr.
Hagerty), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from
Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator
from Utah (Mr. Romney), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), and
the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 53, nays 31, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 79 Ex.]
YEAS--53
Baldwin
Bennet
Blunt
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cramer
Durbin
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Kaine
Kelly
King
Leahy
Lujan
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schumer
Shelby
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Sullivan
Tester
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--31
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Braun
Capito
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Hawley
Inhofe
Johnson
[[Page S1145]]
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
Paul
Risch
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Young
NOT VOTING--16
Blumenthal
Burr
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Feinstein
Hagerty
Kennedy
Klobuchar
Moran
Ossoff
Portman
Romney
Schatz
Shaheen
Toomey
Wicker
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). On this vote, the yeas are 53,
the nays are 31.
The motion is agreed to.
The Senator from Indiana.
Remembering Mark Rapp
Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, at 5:30 p.m. on September 11, 2001, members
of Indiana Task Force One left Indianapolis to head to New York City.
Task Force One is our State's search and rescue squad, made up of our
bravest and most selfless first responders who deploy around the
country in times of emergency.
In the caravan to Ground Zero that day was Mark Rapp. Mark was a
founding member of Task Force One. He was a hero's hero, a rescuer's
rescuer. On March 4, 2022, Chief Mark Rapp died after a courageous
battle with lung cancer.
Mark, who was known by the nickname ``Bum''--that is right, ``Bum
Rapp''--served the city of Indianapolis as a firefighter for 37 years.
He retired as a battalion chief of training in 2017.
In 1993, Mark received the Medal of Bravery for the risky rescue of a
small child from a dangerous apartment fire. He is also a recipient of
the American Red Cross Heroism Award, the Operations Firefighter of the
Year Award, and the Peer Leadership Award for his work as a role model
for the force.
For 10 years, he led the Indianapolis Fire Department's Clothe-A-
Child Program, wherein young people in need shop for clothing alongside
a firefighter; and Mark was a deeply involved father. He built a log
cabin in the Outdoor Lab at Indian Creek Elementary School. For over 20
years, he worked on the ``chain gang'' at Lawrence North High School
football games. His sons, Mark, Jr., and Greg, eventually worked
alongside him as firefighters.
As a member of Task Force One, Mark was deployed to assist in the
aftermath of several natural disasters, including Hurricanes Gustav and
Ike in 2008. He was also a certified rescue diver.
In September 2001, Mark spent 10 days at Ground Zero, leading Indiana
Task Force One through the night shift during nonstop search and rescue
efforts. It is believed that the lung cancer that ultimately claimed
Mark's life could be traced to the toxins he inhaled in 2001. Nearly
half of the 65 Task Force One members who were deployed to the World
Trade Center in 2001 have reported illnesses related to their work.
Mark was the fifth to have died from those illnesses.
On behalf of the people of Indianapolis, the Hoosiers, and the
American people, we thank Mark Rapp, Sr., for his courage, bravery, and
leadership; and our prayers are with Nancy, his wife, his three
children, and all of those who love him.
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.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Energy
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, the American people--the world--is
watching a really horrendous, barbaric, horrible situation in Ukraine;
and we are all praying for the people there, trying to do as much as we
can to support them. And this barbarism we are seeing from Vladimir
Putin is something I don't think anyone is ever going to forget.
We can't let it stand. We need to use all instruments of American
power--with our allies--to work to address this long term because this
is a long-term problem--the new era of authoritarian aggression led by
Putin, led by Xi Jinping--and we need to be able to address it.
One of these instruments of American power that we have had until
recently, in a bipartisan way--every President has supported being an
energy producer, being an energy superpower, being a country that is
energy independent.
And I don't have to tell the Presiding Officer, but this has been
highlighted by the current crisis. What has happened is the American
people--really, the world--have awoken to the fact that the Biden
administration came into office and, instead of building on what they
inherited from the Trump administration, which, again, was a bipartisan
goal of American foreign policy, American energy policy, American
domestic policy--for decades, every President--every President--wanted
America to be energy independent.
President Obama used to talk about this, all-of-the-above energy:
oil, gas, renewables; Jimmy Carter, of course; Donald Trump; George W.
Bush. I mean, it dates back for decades, until the Biden
administration.
And, of course, they came in and on day one said: We are going to
start shutting down the production of American energy. That is a fact.
I am going to go through a lot of the facts. I am going to go through
some detailed memos that are still in existence that show that this is
exactly their policy.
Now, what has happened in the last 2 weeks? The American people have
started to realize: Oh, my gosh, my own government is trying to make it
harder for us to produce American energy. How does that make sense? In
what world does that make sense?
And the average American--always very smart, by the way, much smarter
than the people in DC--is raising the alarm bells, saying: Wait a
minute. Why would we do that? It hurts us at home. It drives up energy
prices.
The President is calling it Putin's energy increases. That is
ridiculous. Energy prices have been going up since this administration
got into office because of this administration's policies.
Good try, Mr. President. That is not going to work.
So the American people are saying: It is hurting us at home. It is
raising costs on my family.
But they are now realizing: Whoa, this is really bad for our foreign
policy and national security too, when you have a war like what is
going on in Ukraine.
So all of a sudden, you see the Biden administration--from the
President on down and his whole team--starting to scramble. They are
starting to hide their policy that has been driven by a far-left
radical agenda and is really hurtful to everybody. By the way, it
doesn't help the environment one bit, not one bit. I will come down
here in another speech and talk about how it hurts the environment.
And it is almost funny to watch this happen if this weren't such a
serious topic. It is almost funny. As a matter of fact, to one Cabinet
official, it was funny. Go Google the Secretary Granholm interview--
I forget which news station--when she was asked, ``Hey, are you going
to help produce more oil for America?'' She literally starts cracking
up, laughing. She is laughing.
It is not funny, Madam Secretary. So now, the White House is
scrambling with made-up stories, made-up rationales. You see the Press
Secretary kind of trying to talk about this issue. No offense to her.
She is pretty talented, but she doesn't know anything about energy.
But they are scrambling because no one is laughing. No one is
laughing. The Secretary of Energy might be laughing about this topic,
but no one is laughing. Working families in America aren't laughing.
The energy workers that this administration has moved to hand pink
slips to aren't laughing. Our allies in Europe aren't laughing.
Ukrainians aren't laughing.
The only ones who might be laughing are the Venezuelans and the
Iranians who this administration is now going and begging for oil from.
They might be laughing.
So it is a really serious topic. And, as I mentioned, the energy
price rise that we have seen across the last year--gas prices were
almost up 50 percent prior to the invasion of Ukraine by Putin. So we
know what is going on because it is no secret.
When the President was campaigning--again, I don't think these
[[Page S1146]]
were really his views but driven by the far-left that he had to get
their vote on--he vowed that he would do exactly what he did on day
one. Here is the President in a debate in 2019: I have argued against
any more drilling. No more drilling--oil or gas drilling on Federal
lands. I will not allow it anymore.
That is the President of the United States.
Now, on day one, he did just that. He did just that. He started out
to keep these campaign promises. We know he canceled the Keystone
Pipeline. They put a ``pause''--I am going to talk about that--on
Federal leasing and permitting, something that really impacted my
State. He signed an Executive order to crack down on oil and gas
production. He canceled the legally acquired leases that my State has
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because this body voted for it,
signed it into law. The President, in a blatantly illegal move, said: I
am not going to allow these leases, even though the Congress of the
United States and the President of the United States previously passed
a law saying they had to be executed.
And just 2 weeks ago, the administration froze new drilling permits
and stopped issuing new leases on Federal lands because they continue
to be driven by a far-left agenda that nobody in the United States is
supporting right now.
(Ms. SMITH assumed the Chair.)
Well, Madam President, I want to dig a little deeper into what
happened on day one.
So what happened here--I have an order. This is an order--order No.
3395 from the Acting Secretary of the Interior, a guy by the name of
Scott de la Vega. I have never heard of him. Never heard of him. Who in
the heck is that?
It was dated January 20, 2021, so that is day one. That is day one.
Some guy named Scott de la Vega--I don't know who he is, but I guess he
was Acting Secretary of the Interior--and he lays out in this memo
everything that should be suspended, everything in America, to stop
producing any natural resources for 60 days. OK?
That is your government at work, America, right here: Scott de la
Vega hereby temporarily suspends--and then they have a whole list of
things that deal with oil, gas, minerals, rights of way--anything on
Federal lands--all stopped. If that is not a far-left radical agenda, I
don't know what is.
It says that people above him--the Secretary, Deputy Secretary--they
can rescind that after 60 days. But there is no one above him. This is
day one. There is nobody even confirmed. That is why Scott de la Vega
was Acting Secretary of the Interior. Don't be fooled. This is an order
on day one from the Biden administration to shut down the production of
American energy. Your government at work, America.
What happened across the country? I can tell you what happened in my
State. This set up a mad scramble in Alaska. I was getting phone calls,
literally, from this memo. I didn't know anything about it.
Why?
What was happening here?
In my State, because we have the highest environmental standards in
the world on oil and gas development, on mineral development, we do our
exploration only in the winter--only in the winter. About a 3-month
period--January, February, March, April--4 months, because we create
ice roads and ice paths. These are giant roads of ice and giant paths
of ice that can take out giant drill rigs on the tundra. We do our
exploration then, and then we bring it off in 4 months. The ice roads
melt, and there is zero impact. It is called zero impact exploration.
OK? It is expensive, but we do that in Alaska because we really care
about our environment. We know how to do both: protect our environment
and develop our resources. We only have about 3 to 4 months to even do
this work every winter.
So I had a bunch of Alaskans--hundreds, thousands--out doing the work
of America--oil and gas development. Old Mr. de la Vega comes out day
one of the Biden administration and says, We are going to suspend any
lease or permit.
When you are in the oil and gas industry, you are constantly having
to get additional permits--what they call ATDs, applications to drill--
to build an ice road, to do other things that are way beyond leases--
Jen Psaki--way beyond leases. You have to get these permits reviewed
and updated very frequently.
They said: No issuing of anything.
I get a call--I will give you one example--from a company that almost
300 people do an exploration for. They were just told: You are not
going to get anything else for 60 days. They couldn't do anything. They
are going to fire all 300 people.
We scrambled. We made phone calls. We tried to get this order
lifted--tried to get an exception. This was happening all across
America. The Federal Government came in--the Biden administration. That
was day one, and Mr. de la Vega--again, don't know who he is--issued
this order: 60 days and stopped everything.
Joe Biden is out there saying: Oh, no, we really care about energy
production.
No, you don't. You are trying to kill it. That was the mad scramble.
Many people were laid off. This is way beyond Keystone--10,000 laid
off.
Let me go into a little more detail. After 60 days, what happened?
This is really important. I really want our friends in the media to dig
into this. Again, you have these things called applications to drill on
Federal leases. OK? All of that was stalled for 60 days. You couldn't
do a thing. This is just a year ago, right--just a year ago from this
administration that is now telling the American people: Oh, no, we are
fully for energy development.
They were trying to kill it.
OK. Normally, when you have a lease on a Federal land, you have
Federal managers. I will give you the example in Alaska. In the Bureau
of Land Management, they will have a field manager, right? So let's say
there is a field manager for BLM in Fairbanks, AL. That man or woman
has a fair amount of authority. They can issue these applications to
drill, to move forward. This is a government that is not centralized,
right? You want the decision-makers--who, by the way, are almost all
professional career staff--to make science-based decisions--not
political decisions--on these applications to drill. That is the way it
works. That is the way it has always worked.
So you have a field manager, say, in Fairbanks. You will have a
district level manager in the interior part of Alaska. Then you will
have one State director, the BLM State director, OK? So they usually--
not even the State director. The lower-level Federal officials can
issue these permits to keep the country moving, producing oil, gas.
What happened after 60 days? After 60 days in 2021--so you have the
Biden administration--Mr. de la Vega shutting down all energy
production for 60 days in America. That is this order. So after 60
days, what happened? Well, there was another order issued. This was
issued by a woman, an official named Laura Daniel-Davis. She is the
Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Land and Mineral
Management. OK. Sounds kind of important. Actually, it is really
important. That is the Assistant Secretary of the Interior in charge of
all oil and gas and mineral development for America. It is a pretty
important job.
In the Trump administration, we had a really great Alaskan, Joe
Balash. He had that job. Did a great job, by the way. So after 60 days,
Acting Assistant Secretary for the Land and Mineral Management--oil and
gas, mining--she issues a memo. I have it right here. I will quote from
some of it. She issues a memo. What her memo says was: Hey, you have
that Executive order--60-day delay by Mr. de la Vega. OK, that is
running out in 2 days. This is March 19, 2021. It is not even a year
old.
What she says in her order is that: You know how you guys in the
Federal agencies--a field manager, the district level manager, the
State director, all across America--I am giving you one example in
Alaska. You know how you all have authority to issue permits to drill,
things like that? That is the way it has been going on for decades and
decades. Well, I, Acting Assistant Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis, I am
taking that away from you. I am taking that away.
Her memo says every decision--she lists a bunch--a bunch--OK? Every
decision--now, remember, nobody was able to do anything for 60 days.
Now, we are saying the 60-day delay is over,
[[Page S1147]]
but any decision you lower-level people--BLM and others--had to make on
applications to drill and permits like that--hundreds and hundreds
across the country--she says--I am going to quote from her:
For those matters that have been submitted in accordance
with S.O. 3395--
She is referencing the Executive order that says stop everything. She
now says: If you haven't received any kind of approval for that stuff--
``If you have not received the final ASLM''--that is her decision--
``you may not proceed [on any of these permits] without approval from
ASLM,'' meaning her.
Think about that. This is an administration saying they really care
about moving oil and gas on Federal lands forward. In the first 60
days, they say everything stopped. Then they say: All right. You are
going to move forward the way it used to work--field managers, district
level managers, State directors, in every State in America--no, no, no,
you don't have that authority. Me, Assistant Secretary Acting--by the
way, she is still not confirmed by the Senate--every one of those has
to come to me for my approval--every one. Every one in Alaska, every
one in New Mexico, every one in North Dakota--anywhere--by the way, all
on the offshore, Gulf of Mexico--anywhere that at the lower levels in
the Federal Government you had professional staff who had the authority
to grant these applications to drill and other Federal permits, this
memo says: No. That will be centralized under me--for America--for
America--every darn decision for oil and gas production and mineral
production in the country has to be approved by this Acting Assistant
Secretary.
Guess what? This memo is still in operation right now--right now.
When the President of the United States looks at the American people
and Jen Psaki: Oh, we are doing everything.
No, you are not. You have one person and this order. I am not going
to go into her background much, but let's just face it. If you look at
it, she spent her whole career trying to take out the oil and gas
industry. Now, she is in charge of every decision for every permit on
every Federal lease for the production of American energy in the
country, and she is still in charge. You have one person.
By the way, this is a political appointee. I don't think she is going
to get confirmed because I am going to block her; that is for sure. But
even some of my Democratic colleagues are like, this is going on right
now, OK? My friends in the media, I hope you take a look at this.
What is really interesting here is you have someone who is a
political appointee--a career trying to take out the oil and gas
industry--and none of this is based on science. This is all political.
They are removing the career staff, the scientists, saying: Hey, it has
to be up to me. One political appointee is in charge of issuing all
permits in the United States in the energy sector. It is still going
on.
This would be like if you wanted to get a loan--right--and you went
to your local bank in your hometown. Let's say it was Bank of America.
There was a local bank, Bank of America in your hometown. This would be
like having to go to headquarters on Wall Street to get approval for
your loan. Think about it. That is going on right now.
And the President has the audacity to look the American people in the
eye saying: Oh, we are trying to do all we can.
No, you are not. Why don't you rescind this order? This is part of
the Biden administration's obsession from day one with stopping the
production of American energy and politicizing it with a political
appointee--who, by the way, doesn't know much about the industry
either.
But there is more to this memo. It gets quite interesting because
there is this kind of doublespeak in it. I am going to read from a
little bit of it. She says that for matters that have been submitted in
accordance with the shutdown--60-day shutdown--but for which you have
not received approval from me, you are still not allowed to move
forward. You have to come through me, the one political appointee who
doesn't like the energy sector.
But here is the interesting thing. She says: ``Please [also] provide
early notification.'' So flag it if it is an item coming up to me that
is part of the administration's priorities. I am quoting right now:
``For example, renewable energy projects [those will go to the front of
the line] or other climate related milestones, `30 by 30'
initiatives''--that is shutting down 30 percent of all Federal lands.
That is not a law by the way; just another radical thing they are
doing--``or actions related to racial equity, environmental justice.''
OK. This is in her memo. She is saying: Hey, I get to approve
everything--all applications, drill, any permits on any Federal land,
anything--one person. But if it is part of a far-left radical agenda,
by the way, that has nothing to do with energy production, give me a
heads-up.
Then she says:
As well as early notification on items that are of high
local, state, or regional interest.
What does that mean, ``early notification''? Make sure she knows
items that are of ``high local, state, or regional interest.'' What
does that mean? I don't know. It is kind of code for something.
Let me give you one example of what I think it is code for. Remember,
she is in charge of issuing all these permits, and there have been a
flood of oil and gas production permits. Guess which State in America
in the first year of the Biden administration has had close to half of
all oil and gas drilling permits issued by the Department of Interior
approved? Remember, she is approving them all. She doesn't really like
oil and gas, but if she has to approve some, it might be related to
items that are of ``high local, state, or regional interest.'' I wonder
who that is.
Who is it? Is it Alaska? No, I don't think so. Trust me. They are
delaying us as much as they can. They don't like us. Twenty-two
Executive orders and Executive actions solely focused on Alaska by this
administration, they really don't like us.
Is it Texas, North Dakota? The State that has got close to half of
all oil and gas drilling permits that this Acting Assistant Secretary,
who is in charge of granting--because, remember, she centralized
everything--is New Mexico. New Mexico. Whoa. New Mexico? New Mexico.
Do you think New Mexico would be a high State or regional interest if
you are her and your boss is from New Mexico? Probably. How about if
you have a Senator from New Mexico calling all the time? Probably.
All right. So I really wish the media would look into this, right?
Because right now you have the President of the United States, Jen
Psaki, and others, saying: Oh, we are trying to do everything we can
here. You have got this memo that is still in effect by an Acting
Assistant Secretary, saying: I am going to control every permit issued
in America on Federal lands. It is right here. Read it. And you can't
move, you regional directors in BLM, you know, in Fairbanks, AK, you
State directors--no, no, no. I am in charge, and I am going to approve
them. You can't move without me. But give me a heads-up. If it is
regional interest, Deb Haaland might care about the New Mexico ones or
climate change or racial equity or whatever else she listed.
So if this administration really wanted to do all it could to produce
energy--which is what every American knows we need to do and what our
allies know we need to do and what Putin hopes we don't do--I think one
thing they could do is to get Acting Assistant Secretary Laura Daniel-
Davis's boot off the neck of the American energy sector because, right
now, she is in charge.
Every permit on Federal lands listed in her memo of March 21--I am
sorry, March 19, 2021, she is in charge of: final resource management
plans, records of decisions, coal leasing, mining operations, R.S.
2477, land sales, exchanges--what else do we have here--applications
for permits to drill, oil and gas leases, applications for royalty
relief. She is in charge of all of that right now.
In this administration, the President, Jen Psaki, and others have the
audacity to look the American people in the eye and say: We are trying
to do everything we can in our power to produce more. If you were, you
would rescind this memo--rescind this memo.
[[Page S1148]]
So the next time the President or some of his staff or Secretary of
Energy or Secretary of Interior try to spin the American people and
tell them they are trying to help, I hope my friends in the media go,
well, what about this memo? Come on, that is like basic Federal
Government 101. If you are telling everybody, stop, halt, and
everything in the country has to be approved by her, that is not the
way it works normally. But because of their anti-energy agenda, she is
making the calls--but make sure that you give her a heads-up, if it is
related to some of the far-left agenda that she literally lays out in
the memo.
I hope my friends in the media ask some questions. I hope they ask
the question: Is it related to this memo that New Mexico is getting all
the drilling permits? It would be a good question to ask, I think.
Don't you think? I think so. Alaska's not getting a lot, but New Mexico
is. I wonder why. Maybe that is related to making sure she gets,
``early notification of items that are of high local, State or regional
interest.''
This is not a laughing matter. There is so much that we have to focus
on in the world today, in America today, and one of the things this
administration needs to do is they need a major course correction on
their energy policy.
You can't let energy be dictated by the far left of the Democratic
Party. You can't let national security of America be dictated by the
``woke'' elements of the Democratic Party. And if you really are
serious, Mr. President of the United States, you need to call Deb
Haaland and say: Rescind that memo. Let the officials, the professional
staff of the Federal Agencies, which the President has charged to do
their job that they have done with every other administration--rescind
this memo and start helping our country produce American energy again.
I yield the floor.
____________________