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Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, over the last several weeks, we have worked at record pace here in the Senate on nominations. This has been one of those tasks that happen literally every time there is a new President that comes in, but the pace we have moved on nominations has been epic based on the last two terms of different Presidents. We have confirmed more people now in the Senate than were confirmed in the first 3 weeks of the Biden administration and in the first 3 weeks of the first Trump administration combined. It is because we have been willing to be able to run the clock and to be able to compress this.

Now, the nominations process does take a long time. Every single one of the Cabinet officials requires 30 hours of debate here in the Senate. Each one of the other individuals requires 2 hours of debate here in the Senate, and we have 1,200 people total that we have to get through.

But, at the beginning of this time period, we focused on the Cabinet- level officials, moving, for instance, Marco Rubio the very first day of the President being inaugurated, and we came into this Chamber that evening and were able to move Marco Rubio.

We started the hearings before the President was even sworn in, to be able to make sure that we are ready. We are literally doing hearings in committees, cueing up the next people, even as we are dealing with the folks that are on the floor, to be able to make sure we can move as rapidly as possible. This is not just about President Trump. It is about the United States and about us having a good operation for our government.

Let me give you a ``for instance.''

Mr. President, you know extremely well, because you were part of this group to be able to move him, but Sean Duffy was actually sworn in. His nomination was done, his hearings were done, we confirmed him on the floor of the Senate, and within 24 hours, we have gotten the worst airline disaster that we have had in 15 years. That Secretary of Transportation was literally on the frontline within 24 hours, dealing with a terrible accident.

It is important that we have people in these roles.

We moved Doug Collins yesterday. Doug Collins, who himself is an Air Force Reserve chaplain, a veteran himself, will now be leading the VA. He is able to step into that role today, taking care of all those issues because we were able to get him confirmed.

Pam Bondi and all the issues that we need to be able to resolve within Justice--she can actually get started on those issues now because she has been confirmed. She is the new Attorney General of the United States.

All these different roles, as we move through them and through the committees, are vital for us to be able to get done. We are fulfilling the task that we need to do, whether that be for Secretary of State in international policy and the chaos happening right now in the Middle East, or whether that is Scott Turner and his experience that he is going to bring dealing with Housing and Urban Development, and with people in poverty in our country that desperately are in need of getting access to housing. We are moving on these folks to make sure that we can actually fulfill the promise that needs to be fulfilled.

Mr. President, I just want to be able to remind everyone, we have more to go. We are going to continue to be here this week to finish out the Office of Management and Budget and Russell Vought in that role, because if we are going to deal with spending and we are going to make the government more efficient, we have to have leadership in the Office of Management and Budget.

That will be done this week, to make sure that we can continue to be able to implement the policies to be able to help the Nation to continue to move forward.

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