[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11670-11672]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
              APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 99, 
which is the Transportation appropriations bill.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the bill by 
title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 99, S. 1243, making 
     appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and 
     Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the 
     fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other 
     purposes.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the 
Republican leader, there will be an hour of morning business, with the 
majority controlling the first half and the Republicans the final half.
  Following morning business, the Senate will proceed to executive 
session to consider the nomination of Thomas Perez to be Secretary of 
Labor. We hope to confirm both the Perez and McCarthy nominations 
today.
  We are ready to move on this whenever my Republican colleagues say 
they want to. What would be the right thing to do would be to vote on 
Perez this morning and vote on the cloture motion I filed regarding 
McCarthy. Then this afternoon, after our lunches, we would vote on 
confirmation of McCarthy. However, whatever the Republicans decide, I 
will be happy to work with them in whatever way is convenient.


    Measures Placed on the Calendar--S. 1315, S. 1316, and H.R. 1911

  Mr. REID. I understand there are three bills at the desk due for a 
second reading.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the bills by 
title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1315) to prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury 
     from enforcing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 
     and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
       A bill (S. 1316) to repeal the provisions of the Patient 
     Protection and Affordable Care Act providing for the 
     Independent Payment Advisory Board.
       A bill (H.R. 1911) to amend the Higher Education Act of 
     1965 to establish interest rates for new loans made on or 
     after July 1, 2013, to direct the Secretary of Education to 
     convene the Advisory Committee on Improving Postsecondary 
     Education Data to conduct a study on improvements to 
     postsecondary education transparency at the Federal level, 
     and for other purposes.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I object to all three of these matters 
proceeding further at this time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard. The bills will 
be placed on the Calendar.


                              Nominations

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today, as part of this week's agreement to 
process nominations, the Senate will vote on confirmation of the Perez 
nomination to lead the Department of Labor, and we will vote on the 
cloture motion on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to lead the 
Environmental Protection Agency.
  I hope we can move forward on these matters as quickly as possible.
  Gina McCarthy is an accomplished environmental official who has 
served under several Republican Governors, including Governor Romney. 
She has worked in Democratic administrations also. As a top 
environmental official in Massachusetts and Connecticut, she has 
expanded energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.
  We had a wonderful event yesterday morning where the EPA building was 
named after President Clinton. He stood and talked about what he and 
Vice President Gore had done to help the environment, and he stressed 
time and time again it is important to have a growing, strong economy 
and to make sure we take care of the environment in the process because 
those two things are not in conflict.
  Gina McCarthy is now Assistant EPA Administrator, and it has been her 
job to come up with creative new ways to keep our air clean and our 
water safe while growing the economy, as President Clinton said.
  She was nominated several months ago. I spoke to her yesterday 
morning, as she was with President Clinton, and she was anxious to have 
a vote today. She has a proven track record of public service, there is 
no question about that.
  Tom Perez, the nominee to lead the Department of Labor, is also an 
experienced public servant. He is from Buffalo, NY, the son of 
Dominican immigrants. As we have heard, he put himself through college 
working at a warehouse and as a garbage collector. He graduated from 
Brown University, one of the most prestigious universities in America, 
and in fact the world, as is Harvard Law School. He went to both of 
those fine universities.
  He served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under

[[Page 11671]]

Janet Reno, who was Attorney General for our country. He was appointed 
by Governor O'Malley in 2007 to serve as secretary of the Maryland 
Department of Labor where he helped implement the country's first 
statewide living wage law.
  Four years ago he was confirmed by the Senate with 72 votes to lead 
the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice in Washington. 
There he has helped resolve cases on behalf of families targeted by 
unfair mortgage lending.
  He is very qualified, with his education and background, and he will 
be an excellent Secretary of Labor. So I look forward to our confirming 
him as soon as we can.


                      Student Loan Interest Rates

  Mr. President, I am very hopeful we can wind up the discussions we 
have had for several weeks now on student loans. There has been 
wonderful bipartisan discussions in this regard. Again, the legislation 
that has been presented to me isn't everything I want, but it is the 
work of a number of Democratic and Republican Senators working very 
long hours--in fact, those Senators had a meeting the night before last 
with the President that lasted about an hour and a half.
  So we have to get this done as soon as possible. Of course, we have 
made it retroactive because we know the student loan rate went up from 
3.4 percent to 6.8 percent the first of this month, and we need to make 
sure that legislation gets done before we leave. With people processing 
their applications to go to school this fall, we should get it done as 
quickly as possible. It is possible we could do it today.
  I appreciate--and I hope I don't miss mentioning anyone, though I am 
confident I will--the Senators who have worked so hard on this issue. 
But those who have worked together on this compromise have been 
Senators Harkin, Durbin, King, and Manchin on our side; and on the 
Republican side, Senators Alexander, Coburn, and Burr. There have been 
others. In the process, we also have a number of Senators who may not 
be totally pleased with this agreement that is contemplated, but they 
have all worked so hard--Jack Reed and Elizabeth Warren.
  What I would like to do, and I hope we can do it as soon as possible, 
with the compromise that has been worked out with the Senators I 
mentioned--and whatever Senator Reed and others want to do--we would 
have a couple of votes to make sure everyone has the ability to vote on 
their legislation. I hope we can do it this way. It would be the right 
way to go in solving this issue.
  If we do this, we would not be back next year to do it. It will be 
done. We would not be back in 2 years. It will be done. So I hope very 
much we can get this done. I applaud all these Senators who have worked 
so hard for so long to come up with an agreement.
  Again, I repeat for the third time even this morning, this isn't 
going to be everything the Presiding Officer wants, the Republican 
leader or I want, but, hopefully, it will be a step forward.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.


                              Nominations

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, today the Senate will consider the 
nominations of Thomas Perez and Gina McCarthy to head the Department of 
Labor and the EPA. I will be voting against both of these nominees, and 
I would like to explain why.
  Tom Perez is someone who has devoted much of his career to causes he 
believes in. That is certainly admirable, but the duty of advice and 
consent is about more than just ascertaining whether a nominee has good 
intentions. Far more important is considering the way a nominee has 
gone about pursuing them. It is about what he or she would do on the 
job. And that--that--is where the Perez nomination begins to break down 
because based on the evidence, Tom Perez is more than just some 
leftwing ideolog, he is a leftwing ideolog who appears perfectly 
willing to bend the rules to achieve his ends. It is this ``ends 
justify the means'' approach to his work, not simply his ideological 
passion, that is so worrying to me about Mr. Perez.
  A few examples from his past paint the picture. Media reports 
indicate that as a member of a county council in Maryland, Mr. Perez 
tried to get the county to break Federal law by unlawfully importing 
foreign drugs even after a top FDA official said Federal law was ``very 
clear,'' and that there was ``no question'' that doing so would be 
``undeniably illegal.''
  When the County Executive, a fellow Democrat, ultimately decided not 
to instruct county employees to break the law, as Mr. Perez advocated--
which could have subjected those workers to criminal prosecution--he 
lambasted the County Executive as ``so timid.''
  ``Federal law is muddled,'' Mr. Perez argued, adding, ``sometimes you 
have to push the envelope.'' Sometimes you have to push the envelope.
  Throughout his career, however, Perez has done more than just push 
the envelope. He once pushed through a county policy that encouraged 
the circumvention of Federal immigration law. As the head of the 
Federal Government's top voting rights watchdog, he refused to protect 
the right to vote for Americans of all races in violation of the very 
law he was charged with enforcing. He also directed the Federal 
Government to sue a law-abiding woman who was protesting outside an 
abortion clinic in Florida.
  The Federal judge who threw out this lawsuit said he was ``at a loss 
as to why the government chose to prosecute this particular case in the 
first place.''
  Just as troubling, when Mr. Perez has been called to account for his 
failures to follow the law, he has been less than forthright. When he 
testified that politics played no role in his office's decision not to 
pursue charges against members of a far-left group that may have 
prevented others from voting, the Department's own watchdog--their own 
watchdog--said ``Perez's testimony did not reflect the entire story,'' 
and a Federal judge said the evidence before him ``appear[ed] to 
contradict . . . Perez's testimony.'' Appeared to contradict Perez's 
testimony.
  In short, Mr. Perez made misleading statements in this case, under 
oath, to both Congress and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Taken 
together, this is reflective not of some passionate leftwinger who 
views himself as patiently advocating policies within the bounds of a 
democratic system, but as a crusading ideologue whose convictions lead 
him to believe the law simply doesn't apply to him.
  As Secretary of Labor, Mr. Perez would be handling numerous 
contentious issues and implementing many politically sensitive laws. 
Americans of all political persuasions have a right to expect the head 
of such an important Federal department, whether appointed by a 
Republican or a Democrat, would implement and follow the law in a fair 
and reasonable way. I do not believe they could expect as much from Mr. 
Perez, and that is why I will be voting against him today.
  As for Gina McCarthy, I have no doubt she is a well-meaning public 
servant. We had some good conversations when she came to visit my 
office earlier this year. But as the head of EPA's air division, she is 
overseeing the implementation of numerous job-killing regulations. 
These regulations, along with others promulgated by the EPA, have had a 
devastating effect in States such as mine.
  They have helped bring about a depression--depression with a ``d'' in 
parts of Eastern Kentucky.
  And there is no reason to expect a course correction from Ms. 
McCarthy if she were to be confirmed as Administrator.
  In fact, one assumes she would be expected to carry forward the 
President's plan to impose, essentially by executive fiat, even more 
destructive policies--policies similar to those already rejected by a 
Democrat-controlled Congress.
  As someone sent here to stand up for the people who elected me, I 
cannot in good conscience support a nominee who would advance more of 
the same, someone who is not willing to stand up to this 
administration's war on coal.
  And remember, this ``war'' talk that is not me saying that. ``A war 
on coal

[[Page 11672]]

is exactly what's needed.'' That is what one of the White House's own 
climate advisors said just the other week.
  All of us--Republicans especially--believe in being good stewards of 
the environment. But Washington officials have to be rational and 
holistic in their approach. They cannot, as this administration seems 
to think, simply do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences 
for people who do not live or act or think the same way they do.
  I do not blame Ms. McCarthy personally for all of the 
administration's policies. But I believe the EPA needs an Administrator 
who is ready to step up and challenge the idea that the livelihoods of 
particular groups of Americans can simply be sacrificed in pursuit of 
some ivory tower fantasy. That kind of nominee--the kind of nominee I 
can support--is one who is willing to question the status quo and to 
make Kentuckians part of the solution.


                               Obamacare

  Later today, the President is scheduled to deliver a speech on 
Obamacare.
  He is expected to say that, because of Obamacare, Americans can 
expect checks in the mail.
  Sounds great, doesn't it? Free money.
  But, as they say, most things in life that sound too good to be true 
very often are.
  And, in this case, it is not so much that people will be getting free 
money, as that most people will be paying many dollars more for their 
healthcare and maybe--just maybe--getting a few bucks back.
  In other words, if you are a family in Covington facing a $2,100 
premium increase under Obamacare, then, really, what would you rather 
have: a check for $100 or so or a way to avoid the $2,100 premium 
increase in the first place?
  I think the answer is pretty obvious.
  I think most Kentuckians would agree that this is just another sad 
attempt by the administration to spin them into wanting a law they do 
not want.
  And there is this to consider: Even though we expect the President 
today to tout about $500 million worth of these types of refunds, what 
he will not say is that next year Obamacare will impose a new sales tax 
on the purchase of health insurance that will cost Americans about $8 
billion. That is a 16 to 1 ratio.
  So if the administration is concerned with saving people money on 
their health care, I have some advice for them.
  Work with us to repeal Obamacare and start over--work with us to 
implement commonsense, step-by-step reforms that can actually lower 
costs for Kentuckians. Because jacking up our constituents' health care 
costs is bad enough, but to try to then convince them the opposite is 
happening--that they have actually won some Publishers Clearinghouse 
sweepstakes, well, it is just as absurd as it sounds. It is really an 
insult and I know Kentuckians aren't going to buy it.
  I yield the floor.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.

                          ____________________