[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 82 (Thursday, May 15, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S2941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Nomination of Sean Donahue

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the nomination of 
Sean Donahue of Florida to serve as General Counsel of the 
Environmental Protection Agency.
  Mr. Donahue may be the most unfit nominee ever for any Federal Agency 
general counsel. As I said in my remarks in committee, this guy would 
have trouble getting an entry-level legal position in any one of our 
offices, yet here we are.
  The Constitution provides the Senate with advice and consent power. 
This power should carry some meaning. ``Advice and consent'' should not 
be empty words, a rubber stamp.
  The Senate confirmation vote on Mr. Donahue that is moments away 
shows how little we care to live up to that constitutional 
responsibility. This is a truly preposterous nominee. The EPA general 
counsel is the chief legal advisor to EPA on environmental laws, 
including Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, the 
Superfund Act, and others; on the Agency's development and 
implementation of regulations under its various statutes; and on 
litigation strategy with DOJ in court challenges to Agency actions. The 
general counsel oversees nearly 200 lawyers and 300 total staff.
  Mr. Donahue has no experience qualifying him to do any of these 
things. He has never tried a case to verdict, never taken a deposition, 
never signed a pleading, never argued a motion. He has never personally 
litigated any case, let alone Federal cases implicating our Nation's 
most important environmental office.
  What has he done? Mr. Donahue practiced law for a year and a half at 
a small firm in Buffalo that fired him for his version of being 
``overloaded with work.'' He was not even a member of the New York bar, 
however, and he then failed the DC bar on his first attempt. He claims, 
in New York, to have supervised six to eight individuals, which seems a 
stretch for someone not even a member of the bar. And there is no 
evidence--whatever minimal and unsuccessful legal experience Mr. 
Donahue had--that any work he may have done bore at all on the laws and 
regulations applicable to EPA.
  The previous seven Senate-confirmed EPA general counsels were pretty 
impressive: Counsel Prieto, two decades in Federal service, including 
as general counsel at both the Department of Agriculture and DOJ's 
Energy and Natural Resources Division; Counsel Leopold, 14 years as an 
environmental lawyer and general counsel of the Florida Department of 
Environmental Protection; Counsel Garbow, 21 years practicing 
environmental law in the public and private sectors, including at the 
EPA and DOJ; Counsel Fulton, 22 years of leadership roles at EPA, 
following 8 years at DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division; 
Counsel Martella, court of appeals law clerk, 7 years with the Natural 
Resources Section of DOJ, Acting EPA general counsel; Counsel Klee, law 
firm for 9 years, chief counsel to the Senate Environment Public Works 
Committee for 5 years, and senior counselor to the Secretary of the 
Interior; Counsel Fabricant, 2 years in private practice and 5 years as 
private counsel, then chief counsel to then-New Jersey Governor 
Christie Todd Whitman. This guy? A year and a half, fired, then in-
house counsel at a solar company, tried no cases ever.
  So why him? Well, I suspect part of it is that he will be so grateful 
that he will do whatever he is told. We have actually seen this 
already, even before his confirmation. He testified that the Trump 
administration's current assault on congressionally authorized, 
appropriated, and obligated funding was legal, never mind multiple 
Federal district court orders to the contrary. I would love to see him 
take that argument into those courts that had already found those 
orders illegal.
  Second, and perhaps more telling, who cares at EPA if their counsel 
has neither experience nor knowledge? They are going to be overseen by 
the fossil fuel industry anyway. He will be told what to do by fossil 
fuel polluter lawyers. So all he will have to do is put what they want 
on EPA letterhead and file it.
  Oh, yeah, and the nepo thing. His significant other is the Deputy 
Director of Presidential Personnel, a role with purview over every 
political appointment, including his.
  Mr. President, this is a pretty bleak low point in Senate 
nominations' history. This is the last chance to pull back from the 
brink of confirming, likely, the most flagrantly unqualified person 
ever for an Agency general counsel position.
  I urge my colleagues to vote no.
  I yield the floor.