Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first, I rise in support of S. 679, a bipartisan effort that will streamline Presidential appointments and reduce the number of Senate confirmations for certain types of positions, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

First, I want to praise my colleague and friend, Senator Alexander, who has been a leading, if not the leading, force in this effort. We have worked together well in a bipartisan way to try to come up with a proposal that meets the agreement of the Chamber. He has done a great job, and it has been a pleasure, I would say to my friend from Tennessee, to work with him, as it always is.

I also want to thank, of course, Senator Reid, who has encouraged us to get involved in this process and has been right there with us all the way, as well as Republican Leader McConnell, who, again, has from the beginning been on our side and agreed that this is a worthwhile endeavor.

So we formed a bipartisan working group at the behest of Senator Reid and Senator McConnell to try to figure out how to try to reduce the number of Presidential appointments that require Senate confirmation and to create new procedures to improve the pace of confirmation for executive branch nominees, as part of an overall reform of the Senate rules.

Senators ALEXANDER, LIEBERMAN, COLLINS and I, in conjunction with the leaders, worked closely to develop this bill and the accompanying resolution, which we will turn to immediately after the bill, to improve how the Senate deals with executive nominations.

Throughout this entire process, we have partnered with folks from both sides of the aisle, and many have significantly contributed to this process. This package is an essential piece of the bipartisan rules reform we began at the start of Congress, and Senators LIEBERMAN and COLLINS have had a lot of experience in this regard. They have tried it before, and their advice to us has been invaluable as well.

The Senate was designed to be a thoughtful and deliberative body. But the confirmation process is often slowed to a near standstill. This legislation will clear some of the more noncontroversial positions so the Senate can focus on its constitutional advise and consent power as it was intended, to confirm the most important positions.

The bill is not intended to take away or diminish the Senate's advise and consent power. The power will remain and still be used for the confirmation of senior policymaking appointments. The purpose of this legislation is to help the Senate function better and more efficiently.

Rather than spending time in committee and on the floor confirming nominees who have part-time appointments, nonpolicymaking responsibilities, or who directly report to Senate-confirmed individuals, we can alleviate ourselves of this burden and make these individuals nonconfirmable.

With that said, I recognize that some of our chairmen would like to see certain positions remain confirmable. We are continuing to work with them on their concerns, and we want to be flexible. We will be working with some of those Senators from both sides of the aisle who have voiced some objections and think the list is too large.

However, we also want to avoid the hollowing out of this bill so it no longer represents real reform. Over the past few decades, hundreds of these positions have been created which have contributed to a clogging of the Senate and a delay in getting good mid-level candidates in place to help the government function effectively.

The bill will eliminate from Senate confirmation 200 executive nomination positions. It covers several categories of positions, including legislative and public affairs positions, information technology administrators, internal management and administrative positions, and deputies or nonpolicy-related assistant secretaries who report to individuals who are Senate confirmable.

Additionally, we have removed thousands of positions from the Public Health Service Officer Corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Officer Corps from the confirmation process. These positions are noncontroversial and their removal will further prevent the possibility of gridlock. Removing those positions from the Senate confirmation process will allow a new administration to be set up with more efficiency and speed, thus making government work better for the people.

The public should not be harmed because we are not able to get qualified people confirmed in a timely manner. The bill will also create a working group that will provide recommendations to the President and the Senate to further improve the confirmation process. The group will focus on offering guidance on the paperwork process for nominees through examining the creation of a single searchable electronic smart form and will also conduct a review of the current background investigation requirements.

In conclusion, this will help make the confirmation process less tedious for nominees by preventing them from having to submit the same information in several different forms to several entities. The bill was successfully passed by the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and S. Res. 116, which we will turn to immediately after this bill, was marked up in the Rules Committee unanimously.

We are confident that this bill, in conjunction with the resolution, will eliminate many of the delays in the current confirmation process. In conclusion, these delays are very detrimental to the efficient operation of government and to the efforts to recruit the most qualified people to these Federal jobs.

The public deserves a focus of our deliberation on confirming the most important positions and not to hold up those generally noncontroversial positions which more closely resemble appointments that are currently made without Senate approval.

I yield the floor, and I know my colleague, Senator Alexander will speak next.

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