Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, in Federalist Paper No. 76, Alexander Hamilton wrote that it was the job of the Senate to ``prevent the appointment of unfit characters.'' That is certainly the mission for which we have responsibility today--to make sure that the unfit characters do not have roles of power and influence within our government.
Andrew Wheeler, the nominee who is before us for the No. 2 job at the Environmental Protection Agency, raises a series of questions and concerns related to whether or not he is fit for office. This is a man whose entire career working for the fossil fuel industry stands in direct opposition to the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency--a mission to protect the health of the American people and the well-being of our planet.
At such a volatile moment for the EPA, when the Agency is plagued by scandal, ethical misbehavior, and pandering to polluters, this nomination deserves the closest of scrutiny. After all, it is quite possible that, before long, whoever fills the role of No. 2 at the EPA could be acting in the No. 1 spot. It is clear that Andrew Wheeler is not fit to be that person.
When President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, he recognized that we all share ``a profound commitment to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.''
For more than 47 years, the EPA has worked under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents to protect our natural environment and preserve our planet as a habitable and hospitable place. That has included controlling toxic and poisonous chemicals, improving air and water quality, and enhancing vehicle efficiency and emissions control. The list of EPA's accomplishments goes on and on, but it can be summed up like this: Americans value clean air. Americans value clean water. Scott Pruitt does not, and Mr. Wheeler does not.
Administrator Pruitt has turned his longstanding disdain for the EPA into a crusade to destroy it. Think about the hard work of protecting our air and our water. There is a lot that goes into that. You can think about the equivalence of constructing a house. You need to have somebody who knows the foundation, knows the plumbing, knows the wiring, knows the carpentry, knows the drywall, and knows the roofing. You have to combine all of that with someone to get the windows installed right and the insulation installed right. It is a lot of work to create a structure that protects our air and water from the thousands of chemicals that can do it harm, but it only takes one person to knock down that carefully constructed house--one person, one wrecking ball.
Scott Pruitt is that wrecking ball in the EPA, knocking down the carefully constructed work of decades of efforts by some of the Nation's leading scientists and most dedicated team members.
There is a lot of frustration among those dedicated scientists, and 700 employees have left or have been forced out. Critical clean air and clean water regulations have been stalled or left in limbo. Enforcement of existing regulations has virtually disappeared. Regionally, EPA offices have been routinely stripped of the power to investigate, while advisory committees that have usually been made up by scientific, objective individuals are now being filled with industry shills. To put it bluntly, under Scott Pruitt, the EPA is conducting a war against clean air and clean water. This is really a shameful situation, and that is just the policy side.
Then we have the ethical side. There is the Administrator's desire to waste our taxpayer money on $40,000 private phone booths, first-class travel, and swanky accommodations; the Administrator's determination to retaliate against those who have pointed out the restrictions that he is violating; and an Administrator who has increased the salaries of his friends in an unapproved fashion. There is little to think that any of this would change with Andrew Wheeler in either the No. 2 or No. 1 position.
It starts with the fact that neither man takes seriously the profound threat to our planet from carbon pollution. I believe that these individuals are smart, that they actually know the enormous damage that carbon pollution is doing to our planet.
After all, it is hard to miss. You can see it this last year in the ferocity of Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Harvey. Why were they so fierce? Because 90 percent of the heat produced by climate chaos was trapped by the oceans, and that hotter ocean energizes the storms to a higher level of impact. You can see them in the forest fires that raged in Montana, across Oregon, and down into California. Year after year, the fire season is longer and fiercer. There are more forests burned.
You can see it in the insect population. You can see it in the mosquitoes that carry Zika. You can see it in the success of the pine beetles, when it is too warm to kill them in the winter. So they do great, and the trees don't. You can see it in the oysters that now have to have the water in which they are born be artificially buffered because it is now too acidic for baby oysters.
And why is it too acidic? Because the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, creating carbonic acid.
It is hard to miss. It is hard to imagine when you see the ocean, where so much carbonic acid has been placed through our ocean through polluted air that it has changed the acidity of the ocean, but that is exactly what it has done.
Now, the EPA does a lot of wonderful work under a normal administration, be it Democratic or Republican. It tracks greenhouse emissions. It works on money-saving regulations, like renewable fuel standard programs. It conducts analyses to compare different policies to see which one would be more effective and what the range of impacts would be. It conducts world-class research on the science. It partners with States and local communities and governments on efficiency and renewable energy. But that is under a normal administration and a normal Administrator. There is no partnering now. It is just simply the wrecking ball.
Scott Pruitt said scientists disagree about the extent of global warming in connection to the actions of mankind. Actually, NASA has very precise estimates or recordings of the changes in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the temperature changes that are occurring from that.
You can find people, primarily those who are funded by the fossil fuel industry, who dispute that and sow confusion. It is certainly the strategy of the fossil fuel folks, who are choosing their greed over our planet. They are selling out America, and those who shill for them are selling out America.
They say: Well, you know, out of 100 scientists, we can find 2 or 3 who disagree. Well, how often do you have somebody who goes to 97 doctors and have them say: You have cancer. And they say: Oh, but, wait; I can find one doctor somewhere. If I pay them enough, they will say I don't have cancer, and then I am healed--except that they wouldn't be healed and they would soon be dead.
In Oregon, we have seen the impact on the Klamath Basin, the worst ever droughts time after time over the last 15 years. Talk to the people in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, whose communities were devastated by last year's hurricanes.
In the last 10 years, the time I have been in office, we have seen half the coral reefs around the world either die or be deeply damaged-- in the time since I was elected in 2008. As to the fact that our economists have calculated the monetary terms of damage for the United States from last year's storms and fires to be well over $300 billion, the fact that quality of life would be profoundly affected by the movement of diseases, the fact that the moose are dying in New Hampshire and lobsters are migrating north from Maine, none of that matters because these folks keep coming back and saying: You know, it is just not clear what is happening. It is not even an understanding of the basic scientific principle. Really? That is just such a lie.
As far back as 1959, Edward Teller, the eminent scientist, was warning folks in the petroleum industry. When he gave his speech at the 100th anniversary of the petroleum industry, he said: ``First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use up more and more of the fossil fuels.'' True enough, it turns out that there is a lot more than anyone thought in 1959. But then he said, second, that it turns out that carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels has a big problem.
You can look through it and you can't smell it so it doesn't seem like a pollutant, but it turns out it traps heat. He proceeded to say that would be a big problem because it would melt ice in the world and raise the sea levels and that would flood our cities. He didn't have all of the science that has been generated since 1959, but he had a basic understanding of the physics of the problem.
What have we seen? We have seen, from that time until now, a 25- percent increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that is a big deal. So we have seen, year after year, it become hotter and hotter. In fact, 2015, 2016, and 2017 were the three hottest years ever recorded. In fact, 17 of the 18 hottest years on record occurred within the last 18 years. Yet these individuals stand up and say: Do not worry. Be happy. There is no problem.
But there is a big problem, and putting folks whose bread is buttered by the fossil fuel industry in charge of clean air and clean water is a colossal mistake for our Nation.
Mr. Pruitt's association with the fossil fuel industry is well documented. He went as far as to send a letter to the EPA on his stationery accusing regulators of overestimating how much air pollution energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in Oklahoma were causing. The letter was written almost word-for-word by a company, not by a scientific expert, nor did it have input from scientific experts.
This type of cozy relationship has continued throughout his tenure at the EPA. Take, for instance, his efforts to stall or eliminate regulations, delay implementations of new ones to help polluters at the expense of the health, safety, and livelihood of millions of Americans. He has issued a memorandum saying the regional EPA offices first have to seek permission from headquarters before investigating polluters, investigating violations, or requesting information. So he has sought to really completely stop the investigation into malfeasance and misconduct damaging our environment--all to help his associates who are in private industry.
The list goes on and on.
We see the same thing with Mr. Wheeler working so closely as a lobbyist for the same fossil fuel industry; specifically, Murray Energy. How can you say an individual will enforce the rules when he represents the industry? That is the challenge.
Our U.S. President said he was going to drain the swamp, but Scott Pruitt is the swamp. He is the person who is proceeding to fail to enforce our clean air and clean water laws. He is the person who is stopping his team from investigating violations. He is the person who is allowing his friends to have their pay increased, or actively working to increase their pay, when it is outside of the regulation. He is the person wasting our taxpayer money in all kinds of ways that have been documented, from security details to trains of cars blowing lights so he can get someplace in the city 5 minutes faster, violating the rules; demoting people who try to hold him accountable--every possible ethical and professional violation.
The nominee before us is a straight backup to that kind of misconduct. He should absolutely not be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He should not get a single vote from a single Member here because the American people want the rules on clean air and clean water enforced. So let's vote for enforcement. Nomination of Michael Pompeo
Mr. President, just a short time ago, I was in the hearings regarding Michael Pompeo to be our Secretary of State. I think my concerns can be summed up by this: I read to him the two provisions of the War Powers Act that give the President the power to put our troops in motion on foreign soil. One of those is a direct and explicit congressional authorization, and the second is a direct threat or attack on the United States or our forces or our assets.
I asked him: Do you think the President of the United States can put forces into action outside of those two provisions, congressional authorization or a direct attack on America?
He said: Yes.
In other words, he absolutely, 100 percent disavows our Constitution, which says the power to make war rests in Congress, not at the whim of the President.
This was one of the most important provisions in the debate about the design of our Constitution; that it should not be easy to go to war. The Constitution gives that power explicitly to Congress. Mike Pompeo says it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, even if there is not a threat to the United States, an attack on the United States; it doesn't matter, even if there is no congressional authorization, the President can do what he wants. You really can't make that argument and honestly take an oath of office to abide by the Constitution.
That is why I will adamantly oppose his nomination as Secretary of State.
Thank you.
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