Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, Scott Pruitt is the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He is charged with running the Agency and ensuring its mission. There are serious questions about Mr. Pruitt's leadership, but we will get to that later.

Today, the Senate is preparing to vote on the nominee to be the second highest ranking official at the Environmental Protection Agency--Andrew Wheeler. As the No. 2 at the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler deserves the kind of scrutiny that reflects a position one step away from Administrator.

Andrew Wheeler has spent years protecting the coal industry--first from here in the Senate, where he worked to prevent passage of climate legislation, and then as a lobbyist for Murray Energy, one of the largest coal companies in America, which has led the fight by the coal industry to undo the progress we have made on climate policy.

Andrew Wheeler's coal credentials are without equal. He is without question a member of the coal industry's hall of fame. He was even present in March of last year at the meeting where Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray presented Energy Secretary Rick Perry with the now-infamous secret plan to save the coal industry.

Sadly, I am concerned that Andrew Wheeler's background means that he will never understand that saving coal is not the Environmental Protection Agency's job. It is the EPA's job to regulate coal, to protect public health and the environment, to keep particulate matter from filling the lungs of children in our most vulnerable communities-- more than 7,500 people die every year from the pollution from fossil fuel powerplants--to reduce the harmful carbon pollution that is causing climate change, and to end the toxic coal-mining practices that are poisoning our waters and our communities.

The corporate special interests, who have worked hand-in-hand with the Trump administration to block clean energy deployment and force Americans to breathe dirty air from fossil fuel combustion, are exactly the opposite of what we need to be at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. They are, at the same time, the companies that Andrew Wheeler has represented. Andrew Wheeler has made a career of promoting the policies that make our air and our water dirty and that endanger the public's health.

Now, with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt under siege as a result of Agency mismanagement and scandal, we must have real concern about who will be No. 2 at the EPA. Who is on deck to take over if Scott Pruitt has to leave? Who is going to be sitting there in the chair as the Administrator to make these decisions about clean air, clean water, about the role which coal plays in polluting our environment? Who will that be if Scott Pruitt were to be removed from his position or resign from his position? And, by the way, that is a position from which I strongly support that he be removed--that he resign--but that would then lead to the consequence that Andrew Wheeler would most likely be the new Administrator of the EPA. This individual would then be in charge of the environment of our country. He would be in charge of it. The coal industry would have their person running the Environmental Protection Agency. That is unbelievable. That is the dream of the coal industry--that, finally, after all these years, they get the guy to be in charge of the environment, as the country and the world are moving in just the opposite direction.

Now, would he have been vetted for that role as the head of the EPA? Absolutely not. He is out here on a snoozy Thursday afternoon with his name out here to be considered with the Galleries empty of either publicity, citizens, or the press paying attention to the debate when the consequences of this decision that the Senate is about to make is of historic magnitude. This man is the coal industry. If you Google the word ``coal,'' his picture comes up. Coal, ladies and gentlemen, has declined from 50 percent of all electrical generation down to 30 percent just over the last 10 years. Why? Well, because utilities in America are moving toward wind. They are moving toward solar. They are moving toward energy conservation. They are moving toward natural gas, which has half of the pollutants of coal. The coal industry has met its maker in the marketplace. The utilities themselves have moved toward cleaner sources of electrical generation in our country, and the only way that they can stave off this revolution, in their minds, is to have a coal industry representative be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Talk about the fox guarding the chicken coop. Talk about some kind of upside-down, bizarro world, where, all of a sudden, at the Environmental Protection Agency, the one industry that has most contributed to the greenhouse gases up in our atmosphere over the last 100 years, now has someone who is next in line to take over the entire Environmental Protection Agency.

So Scott Pruitt is under siege, and we have not asked Mr. Wheeler about his readiness to lead the EPA or how his policies would be different from those of Mr. Pruitt. We don't have any reason to believe his views are any different than Mr. Pruitt's. Does he agree with the policy direction Mr. Pruitt has taken at the Agency? Does he agree with the exorbitant costs associated with the questionable activities Administrator Pruitt has engaged in as head of this Agency?

There is a lot that Andrew Wheeler has yet to answer to if he were to take over as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which brings us to the embattled EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt himself.

Mr. Pruitt's leadership at the EPA has made that Agency as toxic as a superfund site. Administrator Pruitt has consistently undermined the core mission of the EPA--to protect the environment and to protect the health and the safety of all Americans. He has put the interests of the fossil fuel, chemical, and auto industries above the needs of the public's health.

Perhaps the best example of Scott Pruitt's war on good, bipartisan policy is his full frontal attack on fuel economy emissions standards. Last week, Administrator Pruitt and the Trump administration began the process of rolling back these historic standards. In 2007, I worked on a bipartisan basis to enact a provision in the energy law that increased our Nation's fuel economy standards for the first time in 32 years. It is one of the laws that I am most proud of. I was then serving in the House of Representatives and I was able to work with Nancy Pelosi and able to work with John Dingell to push through that measure. Over here in the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, working with Senator Stevens and others, were able to bring together a consensus that changed the direction of fuel economy standards in our country. They had not been increased in 32 years because of the viselike grip that the auto industry and the oil industry had on public policymaking with regard to pollution over the preceding 32 years. It was a tragedy. It was a disgrace. It was harmful to the health of Americans, to the national security of Americans, and to the economy of Americans. Yet they had the power to do it.

But this world changed for the first time in 2007. Then building on that law, in 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation began negotiating a historic agreement with State regulators, automakers, labor unions, and the environmental community. In 2012, the landmark fuel economy emissions of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 got placed on the books. Consulting with States, auto manufacturers, environmental groups, and other experts, the EPA and the National Academies of Sciences have proved beyond a doubt that the existing standards are appropriate. Automakers are meeting these standards more quickly and at a lower cost than predicted. These fuel economy standards are technically feasible. They are economically achievable. They have revived the competitiveness of our domestic auto industry, which has added 700,000 new jobs since 2010 and sold a record number of vehicles in 2015 and again in 2016.

But Scott Pruitt is threatening American consumers, our national security, and our climate by trying to slam the brakes and make a U- turn on this critical policy. We cannot allow Scott Pruitt to put us in reverse on these strong standards. But it doesn't stop there.

Time after time, Scott Pruitt has undermined the core mission of the EPA to protect the environment, to protect the health and the safety of all Americans. The litany of Scott Pruitt's sins is a Big Oil wish list: repealing the Clean Power Plan; supporting withdrawal from the Paris climate accord; weakening the Clean Water Act; allowing more toxic pollution in our streams and our wetlands; loosening standards for hazardous pollutants like mercury, arsenic, and lead that corporations can spew into our air. With Scott Pruitt's actions at the EPA, more Americans would get sick, more children could get asthma, and more people could die. He has shut out the public from the EPA's rulemakings and decisions. During his tenure, the EPA has hidden countless thousands of pages of publicly funded reports on climate science and other topics from the EPA's main web page.

Now it is emerging that he has betrayed the trust of the American people by pursuing ethically questionable behavior while heading this Agency. His mismanagement of the EPA, his intimidation of scientists, among whom fear is rampant, and his insistence on undermining key environmental policies is unacceptable. It is impossible to have any confidence in him to lead this Agency. It is time that we issue an eviction notice, change the locks, and kick Scott Pruitt out of the EPA. It is time for him to go.

Amid this dark cloud, it is up to the Senate to ensure that anyone who is going to be responsible for overseeing our Nation's environmental policy is properly vetted for that position. Without more questioning and more examination, we do not know if Andrew Wheeler is that individual. Ultimately, I cannot vote for a lobbyist for the coal industry to lead the Agency that is tasked with making sure that carbon pollution is regulated. So that is the decision that we are being called upon to make here. It is like a shadow confirmation vote for the next Administrator of the EPA. It is an attempt to slip by at the end of the week, with Members of the Senate wanting to get home, the nomination and confirmation of a man who stands for just the opposite of what the credentials of a candidate to run the EPA should be.

We have a massive wind revolution in our country. We have 260,000 people now working in the solar industry in America. There are 50,000 coal miners, 260,000 people in solar, and 100,000 people in wind. Most of the wind and solar jobs were created over the last 10 years. Which direction does President Trump go? Which direction does Scott Pruitt go? Which direction will Andrew Wheeler, the heir apparent to Scott Pruitt, go? It goes toward coal and not wind, not solar, not renewable energy, not this greatest creation of blue-collar jobs in two generations in a single job sector.

Two percent of all new workers in America last year were solar workers who got hired, and they are good jobs. Who are they? They are electricians up on the roof. They are people who are carpenters. They are putting together the equipment. They are blue-collar workers. They are high-paying, secure, long-term jobs.

The President, however, looks to the coal industry with 50,000 coal miners and says: I am going to put in place a man who is committed to protecting that industry while destroying the wind, the solar, and the renewable industry in general and by saying to the automotive industry that you do not have to any longer increase dramatically the fuel economy standards of the vehicles which we drive in our country.

Elon Musk and all these smart, technologically savvy people in our country who are reinventing the way in which we drive are being told: No, the standard is too high. Your goal cannot be achieved. We are going to roll back those goals. That is Scott Pruitt. That is Andrew Wheeler. That is Donald Trump. That is what this debate is about here on the floor. It is a debate about the future of our country. It is a debate about the future of our planet. It is about the future, about the direction in which we are going to be heading. Are we going to be looking at the world through a rearview mirror, back toward a technology of the 19th century, coal, or are we going to be looking toward the future? That future is one of solar and wind, renewable energy, and all-electric vehicles. It is a revolution that saves the planet, creates jobs, protects our security by backing out of importing oil from other countries.

The fuel economy standards in our country that are on the books right now that Scott Pruitt and Donald Trump want to roll back, back out 3\1/ 2\ million barrels of oil a day that we never have to import from OPEC and the Middle East. Do you know how many barrels of oil we import each day from the Middle East? Three and one-half million barrels of oil. That should be our goal.

Right now, the President is debating whether he should have more missile strikes in Syria in the Middle East and what the impact would be in Iran and Saudi Arabia, but, meanwhile, simultaneously, out here on the floor, we are debating a nominee who is going to be the hand- picked successor to Scott Pruitt to water down those fuel economy standards, water down that protection, which were given to young men and women so they will not have to go over to the Middle East in order to protect those ships of oil which come into our country. That is just morally indefensible when we know these revolutions are moving, they are creating jobs, and they are working.

That is why this nomination today goes right to the heart of the future of our country and the future of our planet. That is who Andrew Wheeler is. He represents the worst of what this Trump administration is trying to do to our country.

We should be the leader, not the lagger. We should be the point of light for the planet, going to a goal that we know can then be exploited around the rest of the world. That is what the 21st century should be all about, where children have to look back in the history books to find that there ever was a time when we were burning coal that was polluting the lungs of children and the planet, when we had a chance to move toward wind, solar, renewable energy, and all-electric vehicles. That should be our goal today. That is why I urge, in the strongest possible terms, a rejection of his nomination.

We should be having a full-blown debate, not this truncated process that is being imposed upon us here today. This is just plain wrong. This nomination is too important. This is the heart of what the green generation in America wants us to debate. Which way are we going, backward or forward? Which way are we going, toward a clean planet or a further polluting of the planet?

In his encyclical, Pope Francis made it very clear, No. 1, that the world is dangerously wanting; No. 2, that it is being caused largely by human activity; and, No. 3, that we have a moral responsibility to do something about it as the principal polluter over the last 100 years; because, No. 4, those who are going to be most adversely affected are the poorest and most vulnerable on the planet, and we have to do something about it.

That is why a ``no'' vote today is correct, because Andrew Wheeler is going to take us in the wrong direction, just the opposite of where Pope Francis urges us to go.

I yield the rest of my time to Senator Carper.

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