Thomas Carper

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. I would ask the Presiding Officer for 15 seconds, please.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to lend my voice in support of perhaps one of the most qualified individuals ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. I am referring, of course, to Chief Judge Merrick Garland. Over 1 year ago, on March 16, 2016, a President who was twice elected by significant margins in both the popular vote and the electoral college nominated Judge Garland to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. President Obama upheld his constitutional duty by submitting a name to the Senate to fill this vacancy. By submitting the name of Merrick Garland, he gave the Senate a man who has spent his career working to build consensus and to find principled compromises. His impeccable credentials speak for themselves: Harvard undergrad, top of his class; Harvard Law, top of his class; law clerk to Judge Friendly on the Second Circuit and Justice Brennan on the Supreme Court. He served in the Justice Department after a time in private practice. When tragedy befell Oklahoma City in April of 1995, Merrick Garland led the investigation that brought justice to the perpetrators of that unthinkable act of terrorism. Judge Gorsuch called this work ``The most important thing I have ever done in my life.'' His career was far from over at that point. In 1997, Republicans and Democrats joined together to confirm Judge Garland to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which is often called the ``second highest court in the land.'' Here is what Senator Orrin Hatch, former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and currently the President pro tempore of the Senate, said of him at the time: Merrick B. Garland is highly qualified to sit on the DC Circuit. His intelligence and his scholarship cannot be questioned. . . . His legal experience is equally impressive. . . . Accordingly, I believe Mr. Garland is a fine nominee. I know him personally, I know of his integrity, I know of his legal ability, I know of his honesty, I know of his acumen, and he belongs on the court. Those are not my words. Those are the words of Senator Orrin Hatch, a good friend and colleague. Over the past two decades on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Garland established a reputation as a thoughtful judge, a fair judge, a man of high integrity, a judicial moderate, and a consensus builder in a day and age when we need consensus builders--not here but on the Supreme Court and other courts. Even those who may disagree with him tend to find themselves thinking a little harder about their own views after hearing his. During his 2005 confirmation hearing to serve as Chief Justice, John Roberts, who served with Judge Garland on the DC Circuit, stated these words: ``Any time Judge Garland disagrees, you know you're in a difficult area.'' Thank you, Chief Justice Roberts. In 2013, Judge Garland was promoted to chief judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, the second highest court in the land--the chief judge, presiding over that court. When President Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court over 1 year ago, Judge Garland brought with him more Federal judicial experience than any nominee in the history of the United States. When I met with Judge Garland last year, I got to know him beyond just his resume. Ironically, he had actually performed the marriage ceremony for my former chief of staff and his bride several years ago. I was struck by Judge Garland's humility and by his personal character, his personal traits. Even as a nominee for the Supreme Court, he continued to serve his community as a mentor to elementary school students right here in Washington, DC. Imagine that. A chief judge of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals taking time every week to mentor some kid who needs another good role model in his or her life. That is something that Judge Garland has done for about two decades. Over 1 year later, as I stand here today, a seat on the Supreme Court--what should be, in my view, Judge Garland's seat--remains vacant. Our Republican colleagues, in an unprecedented display of what I think is obstructionism and partisanship, denied Judge Garland a hearing and a vote. Many of our Republican colleagues refused to even meet with him. He was denied both a hearing in the Judiciary Committee and a cloture vote in the full Senate. Well, since the Senate Judiciary Committee began holding public hearings on Supreme Court nominees 101 years ago, in 1916, no Supreme Court nominee had ever been denied a hearing and a vote. I will say that again. No Supreme Court nominee had ever been denied a hearing and a vote--well, until Judge Garland. According to the highly respected website, SCOTUSblog, we read these words: The historical record does not reveal any instances since at least 1900 of the president failing to nominate and/or the Senate failing to confirm a nominee in a presidential election year because of the impending election. That is right off the blog. Judge Garland was denied a hearing and a vote. In fact, during the 1988 Presidential election year, Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed by the Senate 97 to 0--not 51 to 49, not 60 to 40, but 97 to 0. But Judge Garland was denied a hearing and a vote. Our Constitution, the one that every Member of this great deliberative body has sworn an oath to uphold, standing right over there, requires the Senate to provide its advice and consent to Supreme Court nominees. Over the years, there have been a lot of questions as to what advice and consent entails. Judge Garland was denied a hearing and a vote. A good man--I think an extraordinary man--was treated badly, as was our Constitution. I believe the unprecedented obstruction our Republican colleagues mounted last year against Judge Garland was a shameful chapter for the U.S. Senate. Mr. Garland, a consensus builder, one of the most qualified judges in our country, waited 293 days for a hearing and a vote that ultimately never came. I am still deeply troubled by those 293 wasted days, and I am still deeply troubled by the way Judge Garland was treated. I believe Judge Garland still deserves a hearing and still deserves a vote. While I do not believe that two wrongs make a right, I believe this may be our only opportunity to right a wrong and erase the enormous black mark that the Senate's failure to consider Judge Garland leaves on this chapter of American history. I think it is unacceptable to put partisan politics over fidelity to our U.S. Constitution. Confirming anyone for this vacancy other than Judge Garland would be a stamp of approval for playing politics with Supreme Court nominees. From where I sit, upholding our oath to protect the Constitution means finding agreement on moving Judge Garland's nomination forward at the same time as that of Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's nominee. When President Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes last year and narrowly won the electoral college, he promised to be a President for all Americans. I think a fair question is, Has he upheld that promise? Well, let's decide--an unconstitutional Muslim ban, an unnecessary and overpriced wall on the southern border, a failed healthcare bill that would have provided less coverage for more money, a rollback of environmental protections for all of us who don't want to drink dirty water and don't want to breathe dirty air. If you ask me, the President has broken the promise to be a President for all Americans. Now I realize that others may differ and disagree, but his nomination of Judge Gorsuch represents what I believe is another broken promise. I have heard from middle-class folks, from workers up and down my State, from special education teachers, from immigrant communities, from women who depend on access to healthcare, and my guess is my colleagues have as well. Many of them fear that Judge Gorsuch is not on their side. Despite his impressive resume, I share those same concerns. At this time, I believe it is appropriate to hit the pause button until an agreement can be reached that provides justice for Judge Garland while restoring credibility to the U.S. Senate. I believe that is only bolstered by the cloud that lingers over President Trump's campaign. As FBI Director Comey testified last week, there is an ongoing investigation to determine the links between Russia and the Trump campaign and whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. It has also been widely reported in the media that officials from the upper echelon of the Trump campaign have close ties to Vladimir Putin's interests in weakening democratic governments throughout the West. There are many Americans who believe that Judge Gorsuch has been nominated for a stolen Supreme Court seat. There are also a number of Americans who believe that he has been nominated by a man whose campaign may have coordinated with foreign adversaries on stealing a Presidential election. Let me be clear. At the moment, no evidence has been made public to indicate that this is the case, but there are few nominations that any President will make that will have more of an impact on our Constitution and on the lives of everyday Americans than the U.S. Supreme Court. To hastily move forward with Judge Gorsuch, who is 49 years old and can serve on the Supreme Court well into the middle of this century, without first getting to the bottom of the suspicious and irregular actions of the Trump campaign officials, I believe, would be a mistake. The American people need to know that the President's campaign was above reproach before we decide whether Judge Gorsuch merits approval for a lifetime appointment. I will close my remarks by offering a word of caution to my colleagues. We have maintained and preserved a 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees to prevent Democrats and Republicans from choosing political expediency over bipartisan consensus. If Judge Gorsuch fails to obtain 60 votes on the cloture vote next week, I think it could signal one of three things. First, that Judge Gorsuch's views are outside the judicial mainstream; second, that we still have an opportunity to rectify the injustice done to Judge Garland and to our Constitution; or third, that we still do not know the nature of the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia--a country whose leadership has ordered an attack on our election and our democracy, as well as a whole lot of other countries around the world. If Judge Gorsuch fails to achieve 60 votes on the first try or the next try, it does not mean that his nomination will not move forward at some point in the future. It means we have hit the pause button. It may very well be that while we pause, another vacancy on the Court could emerge. Who knows when another vacancy might occur? But if you ask me, another vacancy might present the Senate with an opportunity to right what I believe is a historic wrong, and we should see if the other objections that have been raised about Judge Gorsuch could be addressed before we change the rules of the Senate in favor of the party in power. In closing, I will say again that Judge Garland waited 293 days for a hearing and a vote that never came. Judge Gorsuch waited 48 days for a hearing, and we will be voting on his nomination next week. Talk about a rush to judgment.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, it is good to be with my colleagues and the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. I am pleased to say a few words about the President's nominee, Seema Verma, who, if confirmed, will lead us at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She is from Indiana, and folks I know in Indiana have said that she knows a lot about Medicaid, but not nearly so much about Medicare, which is a cause for some concern. If confirmed, let me just say we certainly look forward to working with her and with the team she will have around her in that responsibility. It is a very tough job, as the Presiding Officer knows.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Representative Zinke to become Secretary of the Interior. As is always the case, I take this opposing position with some trepidation. Having served as the Governor of my State, I appreciate the importance of deference to a chief executive's decisions to build his or her team, but at the same time, I think we in the Senate have a constitutional obligation to provide our advice and to provide our consent because in the end not all nominees are best for the country we are pledged to protect. Some of my western colleagues may wonder what stake a small State like Delaware on the east coast would have in the selection of a Secretary of the Interior. It turns out, there is plenty. As the chief land steward of our great Nation, the Secretary of the Interior will be asked to manage our collective interests in the conservation, use, and appropriate management of the abundant land, wildlife, mineral and other resources found on our public lands. For that reason alone, we should expect a firm commitment from such a leader that the American taxpayer will receive full value for private use and profit from the use of our Nation's resources, and we need assurances that the use of those resources will not abuse the quality of life for Americans while enhancing the profits of a very limited few. That, I am very sad to say, does not appear to be Mr. Zinke's track record. For example, as a Congressman, I am told he opposed the Federal coal leasing moratorium ordered by his predecessor, Secretary Jewell. Some would call this an appropriate reaction to an alleged War on Coal, but let's just take a moment to take a closer look. As you know, I live in a small State, Delaware, that is, as it turns out, getting smaller almost every day. With each passing tide and every coastal storm, a part of us--our land--disappears forever. We are fighting a valiant and, some would say, futile war against an encroaching sea. This is not a result of variability in weather patterns or long-term trends in ocean dynamics, this is climate change at work. We are not alone in feeling the effects of our Nation's dependence on and robust use of carbon-based fuels--like coal--over the past couple of centuries. There are Native Alaskan communities that have to move in their entirety. Think of that. They have to move in their entirety because tides, storms, and waves--assisted by the absence of ice that used to protect them from fierce winter storm surges--are literally eating away at their communities. I am trying to imagine what it would be like as a family to get the news that you have to leave a place that has been your home for generations, the place from which your ancestors derived their sustenance, honored their forbears, and raised their legacies. I also can't imagine being a person who represents those people and families, having to help them come to grips with the realities of a changing world that we--if we act quickly and assertively--can begin to stabilize. It means a whole lot to us in Delaware that we take a very careful look at when and how we use the bounty of mineral resources under our public lands. At the very least, that should include--as Secretary Jewell's order envisioned--an assurance that we, as Americans, are paid a price for the coal and other public resources our lands provide that matches the value they represent. It is the least among us who need our government's help, not those with the most. We should also, as Secretary Jewell's policy recommended, be aware of and responsible about the climate change implications of the coal sales from public lands. If we humans, as Mr. Zinke admits, are responsible for our changing climate and the fact that my State is slowly eroding away, then we should embrace--not ignore--the commonsense wisdom of the former Secretary of the Interior. Given the chance to agree with this common sense in his response to questions from my colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Mr. Zinke repeatedly demurred. Continuing on this theme, Mr. Zinke, in response to questions from Energy and Natural Resource Committee members, supported the Congressional Review Act resolution to eliminate the Obama administration's rule to curb wasteful releases of methane from Bureau of Land Management land-based operations--yet another example of willingness to sell the American people short in favor of a handful of energy companies. Wasted gas is wasted public revenue. Let me say that again. Wasted gas is wasted public revenue. Wasted methane is adding yet more of a very potent greenhouse gas to our atmosphere. Given the opportunity to reflect some concerns for Americans, our climate, Delaware's and Alaska's shorelines, and our global obligation to put a lid on climate contributions, this nominee demurs. We have seen this pattern of helping the few at the expense of the most across the board with too many of this President's nominations. I believe this is ultimately un-American, unwise, unfair, and unacceptable. I am also concerned with Mr. Zinke's stance toward the use of the Antiquities Act by the President to designate lands as national monuments. Specifically, during his confirmation, we heard a willingness from Congressman Zinke to take the legally uncertain step of revisiting the use of the Antiquities Act by the President to designate lands and historic sites across the Nation as national monuments. Undermining the Antiquities Act is--I believe and a lot of people believe--bad for conservation, is bad for historical preservation, and is bad for economic development opportunities associated with national monuments and our national parks. For those who don't know, the Antiquities Act has been used by Presidents dating back to the early 20th century--roughly 100 years--to preserve and protect our Nation's historic sites and preserve Federal lands for all of us--all of us--to enjoy. During his time in office, President Obama utilized the Antiquities Act to safeguard and preserve Federal lands and cultural and historic sites. Ultimately, he designated over 550 million acres of land as national monuments, including what we call the Delaware national monument. Delaware, as it turns out, has a special history with the Antiquities Act, which I will take just a moment to talk about today. Before Delaware saw the establishment of national parks in our borders, we had a national monument for a couple of years. In 2013, President Obama recognized Delaware's important contributions to the founding of the United States, including its role as the first State to ratify the U.S. Constitution, by creating the First State National Monument, with our urging and support. Before that designation, Delaware was the only State in the Nation that had neither a national monument or a national park. We were the first State to ratify the Constitution but until a couple of years ago no national park. We were the only State that was in that situation. Simply put, Delaware was missing out on tourism and economic development that a national monument or park can bring. The economic opportunities afforded to States with national monuments and national parks, as it turns out, are significant--quite significant. Each State with a park or monument sees economic benefits of at least $1 million, I am told, if not much more, in tourism and economic development, and every year millions of Americans and countless others from across the world plan their vacations around America's national parks and monuments. Believe it or not, if someone in some other country--whether it is Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Central America--if they are interested in coming to the United States, they go on the National Park Service website, and they look up all of the national parks and monuments across the country and decide which ones they might want to visit. The single most popular destination within the U.S. borders for tourists from other parts around the world, believe it or not, are our national parks. Isn't that extraordinary. The economic opportunities afforded to States with national monuments and national parks are significant-- again, around $1 million or more. Delaware's national park celebrates Delaware's rich colonial history as the first State to ratify the U.S. Constitution. As it turns out, the Constitution was first ratified on December 7, 1787. Many years before that--maybe 150 years before that--the first Finns and Swedes came to America, and they landed in what is now Wilmington, DE. They sailed across the ocean in the Kalmar Nyckel and the Fogel Grip from Sweden and Finland. It was before they even had a Finland, and the Swedes and Finns were one. They sailed through the Delaware Bay and north to the Delaware River and came to an uncharted, unnamed river that headed off to the west, off of the Delaware River. They went about a mile. When they came, there were a lot of big rocks along the coastline, and they landed there at the rocks. They declared that spot the colony of New Sweden, which later became Wilmington, DE. They built a fort called Fort Christina, and they built a church, the Old Swedes Church. It is the longest continuously operating church in America. About 15 miles south of that spot on the Delaware River is actually the river they sailed up on and planted their flag, the Christina River. They named it after the 12-year-old child Queen of Sweden, but about 50 miles south of the Christina River, further down the Delaware River, is a town of New Castle. There is a big statue of William Penn in the town of New Castle, and it is because William Penn first landed in America--not in an area close to Philadelphia where they have Penn's Landing. He landed in New Castle, DE, and he brought with him the deeds to the land that later became Pennsylvania and Delaware. Further down the coast toward where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean is a town called Lewes, DE. Lewes, DE, was settled by the Dutch, the first time unsuccessfully. The settlers lost their lives. The second time they came back in greater numbers and successfully settled Lewes, DE, and it endures to this day. The Brits didn't much like the idea that the Dutch had a foothold in that part of Delmarva, in what is now Sussex County, DE, and one night many years ago--several hundred years ago--the British surrounded Lewes, DE, which was then inhabited by the Dutch, and they burned it to the ground. The next morning when the sun came up, there was one house standing in Lewes, DE, and it was Ryves Holt House. It is believed to be one of the oldest standing houses in all of North America. If you drive up from Lewes headed north on Route 1 toward Dover Air Force Base, just before the Dover Air Force Base is a colonial plantation called the Dickinson Plantation, named after John Dickinson who was a penman, an early writer who spoke about and wrote some of the early writings that had been cited and encouraged the colonists in what is now America to rise up against the tyranny of the British Crown. As you go a little further up Route 1 to Dover and go to downtown Dover, you come across an area where there used to be a tavern called the Golden Fleece Tavern, and that was the place where, on December 7, 1787, after three days and nights of debate and discussion, luckily, 25 early colonists decided to ratify the Constitution, which had come down the week before from Pennsylvania. We were the first State to ratify the Constitution. A few years before that, a fellow named Caesar Rodney, who had been president of Delaware and later held any number of offices in the State even before it was a State, actually rode his horse right past the area where the Golden Fleece Tavern was--where the Constitution was ratified--and rode his horse all the way up to Philadelphia, PA, in order to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the Declaration of Independence. That is a little bit of the history of Delaware. The National Park Service decided 3 years ago that the early colonial settlement leading up to the ratification of the Constitution is what made Delaware unique, and our national park includes a number of those different components. Think of it almost as a necklace with different stones of value and interest around our State. That is what it is. That is the national park today. It started off really as a national monument from the Antiquities Act. Given that kind of history, we need to make sure that future administrations and future Presidents have the ability to utilize the Antiquities Act to safeguard the country's history, protect the outdoors for all of us to experience and to enjoy. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to send what I think is an important message that we want people in our government who are there to help people. I will be voting no on the Zinke nomination as a result, and I encourage my colleagues to consider doing the same. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I rise today on behalf of Delaware's congressional delegation--Senator Chris Coons, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester and myself--to honor the exemplary service of MG Frank Vavala, the adjutant general for Delaware for the past 18 years. As Governor of Delaware, I had the distinct pleasure of nominating him to serve as Adjutant General in February 1999, and I believe to this day it is one of the best appointments I have ever made. Over the past 17 years, General Vavala has been responsible for the mission readiness of all Delaware National Guard units for both Federal and State missions. He served as a cabinet member and trusted military adviser to me when I was Governor, as well as to the three Governors who succeeded me: Governor Ruth Ann Minner, Governor Jack Markell, and Governor John Carney. In January 2017, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general Delaware, becoming the first three-star general to lead the Delaware National Guard. During General Vavala's tenure, the Delaware National Guard has deployed close to 11,000 soldiers and airmen to support our State and country. Nearly half of them were deployed abroad to Bosnia, South America, Africa, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, among other countries. Once in theater, these men and women accomplished almost every mission imaginable. They ran entry control points, provided security, established and maintained communications and conducted medical evacuation from the battlefield. They also transported supplies, patients, personnel, and dignitaries in both UH- 60 Blackhawk helicopters and C-130 aircraft. Back at home, the Delaware Guard activated nearly 5,000 soldiers and airmen to provide support during 11 snowstorms, 8 hurricanes--including Hurricane Katrina, where hundreds of Delawareans went to help in Mississippi and Louisiana just 24 hours after the devastating storm made landfall, 1 tornado, dozens of floods, Noreasters, and three Presidential inaugurations. General Vavala oversaw all operations as soldiers and airmen helped transport emergency workers and patients, evacuate flooded areas, get residents to shelter, safety, and medical assistance, and even set up emergency communications around the state. Like many successful leaders, General Vavala did not keep regular office hours. He routinely came to work early, stayed late, and worked on weekends. He was known for taking the time to recognize, thank, console, and care for everyone under his command from the newest private to the most senior officer. He valued every person who wore the uniform equally. I have met Guard men and women for years who say that when they were in a time of need, General Vavala was there for them, even if it was just taking time to drop them an email or note. Sometimes they wondered how he found out about what was going on in their lives, but however he did it, he found out. He prioritized his soldiers and airmen over his own career. Instead of focusing the spotlight on his individual accomplishments, General Vavala put the focus on his soldiers and airmen, and it made his career a success by default. In addition to holding dozens of leadership positions in the Delaware Guard, General Vavala held prominent national positions as president of the Adjutants General Association of the United States and chairman of the board of the National Guard Association of the United States, NGAUS. During his tenure as chairman of the board, NGAUS was the main driver responsible for passing one of the most significant pieces of military legislation in a generation--the National Guard Empowerment Act. General Vavala provided key testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and was instrumental in advocating for the passage of this important legislation. In January 2012, Delaware's 146th General Assembly passed H.J. Res. 10, recognizing General Vavala for his leading role in helping to reshape the U.S. military. General Vavala is from a proud military family, having served with both his father, COL Frank P. Vavala, and brother MSG Gerard P. Vavala. Before serving as Adjutant General, he worked full time for the DuPont Company, where he was employed as marketing services supervisor for 31 years. He has been honored with the Anthony of Padua Founders' Award and the Italian-American Man of the Year Award. He also cares about his community, organizing food drives for the Food Bank of Delaware, and he is a person of deep faith who takes seriously what the Bible tells us about caring for others and focused that into his career as Adjutant General. I believe General Vavala has been successful in no small part because he possesses some of the finest leadership qualities that I have ever observed in a military leader. Frank Vavala understands that leaders are humble, not haughty. They have the heart of a servant. They understand that their role is to serve, not be served. General Vavala leads by example. It is not do as I say, but do as I do. He knows that the best leaders aren't afraid to keep out of step when everyone else is marching to the wrong tune. Leaders unite, not divide. They build bridges not walls. They are aspirational--purveyors of hope, if you will--and they appeal to our better angels. Like the very best leaders, Frank has always sought to do what is right, not what is easy or expedient. He embraces the Golden Rule and treats other people the way he would want to be treated. General Vavala surrounds himself with the best people he can find. When his team does well, he gives the credit to them. And when the team falls short of the mark, this leader takes the blame. Finally, when General Frank Vavala knows he is right, he never gives up. As a leader, General Frank Vavala is in a class of his own, and he is one whom other leaders, both civilian and military would do well to emulate. On behalf of Senator Coons and Congresswoman Blunt Rochester, let me wholeheartedly thank General Vavala for his service to our country and our State. The leadership and commitment he modeled helped keep Delaware and our Nation more safe and secure. Today, we are honored to be able to offer General Vavala our sincere congratulations on a job well done. From our hearts, we wish him and his wife Jane, who he has been married to for 50 years--along with their children Anne, Jane, and Nick and their three granddaughters--many happy, healthy, and successful years to come. Bravo Zulu.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President and colleagues, if I could have your attention, please. Five minutes please. Two years ago, the Center for Media and Democracy filed a petition under Oklahoma FOIA law called the Oklahoma Open Records Act. For 2 years, the appeal of that petition was blocked. Earlier this year, a lawsuit was brought to require the release of thousands of emails from the AG's office in Oklahoma with the fossil fuel industry, oil companies, coal companies, and the like. Six hours from right now, an expedited hearing will take place in the district court of Oklahoma. Earlier this week, nine members of the Environment and Public Works Committee wrote and asked the judge who is going to preside over that hearing today to move forward expeditiously, and she is. We also wrote and asked the majority leader to delay the vote on cloture for Scott Pruitt until a week from Monday. He has declined. Thomas Jefferson used to say: If the people know the truth, they will not make a mistake. Colleagues, we need to know the truth. Speaking of the truth, there is an old saying that says: People may not believe what we say. They will believe what we do. As a candidate, as nominee, and President-elect, Donald Trump has made clear his job, his goal is to degrade and to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency. Like a lot of things he says, we asked: Did he mean it? With the nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA, it is clear he did. In Mr. Pruitt, Trump has found someone who, as AG of the State of Oklahoma, shut down your environmental protection unit in that office. He went on to raise millions of dollars for fossil fuel industries and other sources used to sue the Environmental Protection Agency because of their efforts to reduce methane emissions, their efforts to stop cross-border pollution, their efforts to cut methane emissions, their efforts to fight smog, haze, and ozone. Under Attorney General Pruitt's stewardship in Oklahoma, child asthma is well above the national average. Fish advisories in lakes in Oklahoma have more than doubled. All 16 counties in Oklahoma that are evaluated by the American Lung Association for clean air received an F last year--every one of them. Earthquakes have risen over the last dozen years in Oklahoma, from one or two per year to one or two per day. That is only the earthquakes that exceed 3.0 on the Richter scale. When we asked Scott Pruitt today to name one battle he had led to reduce pollution in his State, he cited the issue involving the Illinois River, which we later learned was actually much more the work of his predecessor than it was his. When I asked him to name one environmental rule and regulation that he supported, he declined to do so. We are coming off of yet another hottest year on record. They are experiencing monsoon-like rains in California this month after years of drought. Temperatures in Alaska are so warm, we are not sure some years that they are going to actually have the Iditarod dog race, sea levels are rising from New England to Miami, there is a huge crack in the ice in Antarctica, and Scott Pruitt raises questions about the validity of the science around climate change. In last year's election, a lot of people said: We want to take our country back. To what? The Cuyahoga River which caught on fire; the L.A. smog that was so bad, when I ran it hurt my lungs. Some say: Is it possible to have clean air and clean water with a strong environment? That is nonsense. We can have both. Since Richard Nixon signed into law creating the EPA, guess what. GDP in this country has grown by 200 percent or more. Since losing 5 million jobs in the great recession, we added 16 million jobs, the unemployment rate is down by half. We still have work to do, my friends. There are communities in the United States where water is unsafe to drink. There are millions of kids and grandkids who have asthma. We have fish advisories that abound from sea to shining sea. The sea level is rising up and down the east coast. State Route 1 in my State, our major highway, was shut down again last week, not because of a huge storm but just because of sea level rise. Let me close by saying that when our grandchildren ask us years from now what we did about it, I want to tell them we did the right thing. We did not back down. We stood our ground. We voted to face this challenge to our people and to the planet, and to overcome those challenges. Please, join us in voting no on the motion to invoke cloture. Thank you.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. We have heard from a lot of folks, different views on what we ought to be doing. One of them was from a fellow whose name is Kyle Meyaard-Schaap. Who is Mr. Schaap? Good question. Mr. Schaap is the leader or one of the spokespersons from a group--if I can find it here; here we go--spokesperson for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. He wrote us about Mr. Pruitt's nomination. Here is what he had to say: If Scott Pruitt embraces his own self-described pro-life stance, he should fight to protect vulnerable lives from birth to natural death--the lives of children born and unborn, the elderly, people of color--from environmental pollution. He should work tirelessly to ensure that everyone has clean water and air. He should strengthen, not eviscerate, an agency equipped to honor God's mandate to steward and care for the creation. Mr. Meyaard-Schaap goes on to say: As Oklahoma attorney general, however, [Mr. Pruitt] has done just the opposite. He has had the chance to protect people from pollution and the harms of climate change. Instead, he has brought multiple lawsuits against the EPA to overturn measures that would safeguard clean water and air. He had the chance to defend policies that cut the power plant pollution that fuels climate change and pollutes our air. Instead, he cast doubt on climate change and downplayed the moral imperative to safeguard our climate and environment. He had a chance to assist EPA in its mission to protect public health. Instead, he questioned its mission entirely and sought to defend industry from regulation. We all have an obligation to protect the health of our children, families, and the world in which we live. For me, this is not only my responsibility as a parent and official elected to serve the people of Delaware, it is a moral calling. I sat for 8 years as a member of the National Governors Association. For 7 years, this lady sat right next to me. She was the Governor of New Jersey. She went on to become the Administrator of the EPA--the very position to which Scott Pruitt has been nominated. She is not a Democrat. She is not a progressive. She is not a knee-jerk liberal. She is a Republican. She was not only the Governor of her State for 7 years, but she was the head of EPA for a number of years under George W. Bush. Here is what she basically said about Scott Pruitt, her words, not mine. She said: ``[I] can't recall ever having seen an appointment of someone who was so disdainful of the agency and the science behind what the agency does.'' That bears repeating. ``[I] can't recall ever having seen an appointment of someone who is so disdainful of the agency and the science behind what the agency does.'' Those are powerful words. Just as I think that the idea of waiting another week or so to get the wisdom that those thousands of emails might contain--we don't have to wait for the wisdom from this woman who has walked in these shoes, serving her State as Governor and serving this country as the leader of the Agency that protects our public health for all of us. My hope is that our colleagues will not ignore this wisdom. Lastly, I will say this: Come next Thursday, Friday, we are going to start getting the information from these emails. We will find out if there is fire where there is smoke or not. If there is nothing there, then there is nothing there, but if there is something there, I just want to say to my Republican friends, if you are ready to vote for this nominee without this complete information that we could have here to be put to use in a positive way within 10 days from now, you pass up a big opportunity. We are in a sense, by voting on this nomination without this information, flying blind. I am an old naval flight officer, 23 years as a naval flight officer, retired Navy captain. In Southeast Asia, you flew into monsoons and really bad weather sometimes. We never wanted to fly blind. We always wanted to have a good weather forecast. We want to avoid the places we ought to avoid. We wanted to fly at altitudes that were safe. We wanted to use our radars to be able to find the pockets to go through to be safe. We never wanted to fly blind. If we basically, before we close up shop, vote for this nominee with incomplete information, we are flying blind. It wasn't a very smart thing to do in naval aviation, and it would not be a smart thing for us to do here. This is not a warning; this is just friendly advice from one colleague to another: It is worth waiting an extra week to get this information rather than voting today without it. Again, the words of our Chaplain Barry Black always invoking us to ask for wisdom--I have asked for it. The wisdom that I would impart to all of us today: Hit the pause button. Get the information next week. Make our decision then. I yield back my time. Thanks so much.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, a few minutes ago, we stopped everything right here. Stopped. And the Chaplain of the U.S. Senate came in, Barry Black, retired Navy Admiral, and gave a prayer. We have a Bible study group that meets every Thursday. We met yesterday in Jim Inhofe's hideaway. Every time we meet, almost without exception, Chaplain Black reminds us, Democrats and Republicans--those of us who need the most help--he reminds us that of all the times the Scripture is invoked, we should ask for wisdom. Well, I ask for wisdom every night for myself, my colleagues in the Senate, over in the House, the President, the Vice President, their spouses, every night, that we have the opportunity to gain some wisdom. When Scott Pruitt was nominated to be the Administrator for EPA, I sent him a letter December 28, asking 52 questions, asking for responses by January 10. They didn't come by January 10. We had a hearing January 18. I got some answers, not all. One thing I also asked for, also asked for by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, was access to what the folks had been asking for from the Center for Media and Democracy for 2 years; that is, access to thousands of emails in the AG's office, and their back and forth with the fossil fuel industry, oil, natural gas, coal, a variety of others. We would like to have access to those emails. When Mr. Pruitt went before our committee for his hearing on January 18, he was asked the question: Do you promise to provide information reasonably requested by committees here in the United States Senate and the Congress, including in electronic form? He said, yes, but he didn't do it. In fact, for 2 years, the AG's office fought off efforts to try to gain access to that information, electronic media. It took a judge calling an emergency meeting yesterday in Oklahoma to say to the attorney general's office: You have to turn this information over. Normally, you know how long a 4-year request takes in Oklahoma to get results like this? We are talking maybe 2 months. This was over 2 years. Finally, we are going to get access to those emails. There may be a reason why they were so reluctant to share those emails with us. We are going to find out starting next Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, when we get them. If we don't vote to support Senator Merkley's proposal, to put off the vote until the Monday after we come back from recess, we will not have the opportunity to take advantage of what the judge--I don't know if it is by Divine intervention, but this judge has given us the opportunity to gain wisdom, to make a smarter decision, to make a better informed decision. If we vote up or down on Mr. Pruitt's nomination today, we pass up a great opportunity to get a fuller picture. Now, my Republican friends will say: He sat through the longest hearing of any EPA Administrator in the history of our country. He has answered 1,000 questions. Let me just say that Gina McCarthy answered more when she was the last EPA Administrator. She answered more--quite a few more, actually. She took a little extra time to actually answer the questions. So many of the responses we got to the thousands of questions for the record asked of this nominee--the answers were evasive, they were incomplete, and sometimes they were just totally nonresponsive. You can say he answered all the questions, but how well? How thoroughly? How responsively? Not so good. Not so good. Friends, I want to put up here on the board--I have a board here. Let's look at the third one. Mr. President, how much time do I have?

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I would like to follow up on something our friend from Mississippi was just saying. I want to make it clear that I am not really interested in obstructing. I am not interested at all in obstructing. What I am interested in is getting to the truth about this nominee and others. Two years ago, an organization called the Center for Media and Democracy petitioned, under the Oklahoma open records law--it is a FOIA-like law at the State level--they asked for access to thousands of emails that were sent from or to the attorney general's office under Scott Pruitt. That was 2 years ago. They have repeatedly renewed that request over time, and it has not been granted. Why might emails be germane? Well, they are germane because many of the emails were with industries that have differences with the EPA and in some cases are involved in lawsuits, a number of which were sponsored by or joined in by Attorney General Pruitt. Two years after the request to see those emails was submitted to the attorney general's office, they had not seen one of them. A lawsuit was filed earlier this month asking the court--I think it is called the district court of Oklahoma, a State court--asking to see the emails and asking that the court intervene so that the Center for Media and Democracy would have access to the emails. The Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee wrote to the judge, and we shared our voice because we have been making the same request of the attorney general's office--of the attorney general--as part of the nominations process. He has declined to provide the emails to the Congress, the Senate, and we have let the judge know that we appreciate her attention to this matter and hope she might even expedite it. Well, an expedited hearing is called for this afternoon on the sharing of these emails that have been blocked, stonewalled, for 2 years. What we did as Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee is I met with the majority leader, and nine of us wrote to the majority leader, and we said: With all due respect, we suggest to give the judge time to make a decision, and if the judge says the emails should be opened up, allow us to have until a week from this coming Monday to look at the emails to see if there is anything inappropriate or untoward that could be revealed. That request to the majority leader--he was very nice about it, but he basically said: We are not going to do that. I renewed the request here yesterday on the floor, and he said: No, we are not going to do that. I am generally one who thinks it is very important for us to communicate, collaborate, cooperate around here, as I think most of my colleagues would attest, but in this case, I don't think we made an unreasonable request of the nominee. And I think to block access to these emails--even when petitioned under the Oklahoma FOIA law, backed up by our support--for nothing to happen is just wrong. That is just wrong. So hopefully when the judge has this hearing later this afternoon-- actually, in 2 hours--we will find out a bit more as to whether the AG's office is going to be asked to turn these emails over and make them public with that information. I hope the answer will be yes. We will see. I asked Mr. Pruitt 52 questions on December 28 and asked they be responded to by January 9. January 9 came and went, and we were told maybe we would get the responses at the hearing we were going to have on January 18. We had the hearing on January 18, and some of the specific questions were answered, some not, but we submitted as a committee some 1,000 additional questions for the record. That is a lot of questions. I suggested to the committee chairman he give the nominee a reasonable amount of time to respond to those questions. The chairman, in the interest of moving things along, I think, gave the nominee 2 days, which is, in my view, not nearly enough. If we go back several years ago, the last EPA Administrator was a woman named Gina McCarthy. She was asked a number of questions. She was actually asked more questions, I think 1,400 questions, which is several hundred more than Scott Pruitt but a lot of questions. She did not have enough time to answer the questions, and a little extra time, maybe a week or so, was granted. She answered the questions, as I understand, fully, completely, and directly. I will read some of the questions we asked of Scott Pruitt later today, later tonight, with examples of the kind of answers he provided. Some were reasonably complete, but too many were evasive, indirect, or just nonresponsive. Maybe that is because the chairman only gave him a couple days to respond. That is not the way we ought to be about the business. Mr. President, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue. The Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following congressional fellows in the office of Senator Tom Udall be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 115th Congress. Their names are Emma Locatelli, Sean MacDougall, and Angela Tapia.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I lived in Palo Alto Park, that part of the State. The Naval Air Station was there. It used to be called Moffett Field. It is still there. I remember the hangars that we used during the time we served on Active Duty. I had the privilege of knowing a number of attorneys general from California, and we are very pleased to be able to welcome Senator Harris to our floor. Yesterday she gave her maiden address on the Senate floor. Thank you. She is pretty good. I would say that you are even better than I thought. That was wonderful. Those were wonderful comments. I know our Presiding Offerer is also the chairman of our committee and probably is not enjoying your comments as much as I am, but I thought you were evenhanded and fair in sharing that. The Presiding Officer is a pretty good friend of mine, and I don't know if he is a big baseball fan. I am. I love sports. I am a huge Detroit Tigers fan. You are a Giants fan. The leadership in baseball is critically important. It is important to have good infielders, good outfielders, good pitchers, catchers, and so forth. What is really important is to have great leadership and great leadership in terms of the coaching staff. Leadership is always the most important ingredient in every organization I have ever been a part of. The Tigers just lost their owner, Mike Ilitch. He was a legendary figure in Detroit in baseball. He passed away earlier this week at the tender age of 86. It is a big loss for Motown and, frankly, for baseball. In terms of leadership, we wouldn't want to hire somebody to coach a baseball team who was a football coach or someone who is great with a basketball team. I don't doubt that Scott Pruitt a skillful lawyer. I met his family. I like him. I think he is arguably a good dad and a good husband. But it is a little bit like asking a pacifist to lead something like the Department of Defense--may be a skillful person but maybe just not the right person to do a particular job. I thought you outlined that very well. I wanted to say welcome to the big leagues. We are going to learn a lot from you. I yield back.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, one of the things I love about the Senator from Indiana is he understands there is a Golden Rule. We are one another's neighbors, and we need to treat others the way we want to be treated. States need to treat other States the way they would want to be treated. He also understands a very valuable principle: that it is actually possible to have cleaner air, cleaner water, and strengthen our economy. When I was an undergrad at Ohio State, a midshipman there, I remember a time up north of us in Cleveland, OH, when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. The kind of smog we have now in parts of the country, running in places in California, when I was stationed in California in the Navy for a while--there are days when I ran that I knew I wasn't doing a good thing for my lungs. We have done a lot better than that. While we cleaned up rivers like the Cuyahoga River and we cleaned up the air in a lot of places in the country, we still have work to do. We have made those changes and those improvements and developed technology that we have been able to sell all over the world. That is a good thing. I thank my friend for getting up at this hour of the day and joining us here and for his leadership, not just in Indiana but here in the Senate. It has been a joy. Thank you. I want to go back to what I was talking about earlier--Scott Pruitt's views. I think they are extreme, uninformed views on mercury regulation. Mr. Pruitt's views on core clean air and clean water laws and the somewhat misleading and oftentimes evasive answers he has given to Members of this body, including myself, ought to be reason enough for Members of this body to reject his nomination. Two months prior to his confirmation hearing, Mr. Pruitt filed his third major legal action against the EPA's mercury and air toxics rule. This case is still pending before the courts. For those who don't know the EPA's mercury and air toxics rule, it requires our Nation's largest source of mercury pollution--coal-fired plants--to reduce mercury in a wider range of air toxins. The EPA issued this rule in 2012, and because of the low cost of compliance, most utilities are already meeting the standards. We made more progress at a faster time, at a lower cost than was actually anticipated. The same thing is true with the elimination of acid rain in New England. The deal that was worked out was a cap-and-trade approach, but the idea was developed when George Herbert Walker Bush was President. We ended up with better results for less money and faster time than was anticipated. We can do this. Mr. Pruitt filed his latest lawsuit alongside with one of the Nation's largest coal companies, Murray Energy Corporation, arguing that the benefits of cleaning up powerplant and mercury and air toxic emissions are ``too speculative'' and not necessary. Mr. Pruitt goes on to argue that there are only ``hypothetically exposed persons'' from mercury and air toxic emissions from powerplants. Imagine that--``hypothetically exposed persons.'' Again, I would say: Really? Finally, Mr. Pruitt argues: ``The EPA cannot properly conclude it is appropriate and necessary to regulate hazardous air pollutants under Section 112.'' His boiled-down arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit is basically this: If the EPA cannot quantify benefits in dollars, then those benefits don't count. Never mind that we know the real-world health threats to people this kind of air pollution poses. The idea of looking at public health protection only through the lens of dollars and cents is not a new one, but it can be a dangerous one. The tools we have for projecting costs and putting a dollar value on the health benefits are not gospel and are not the only way of analyzing the economic impacts of reducing pollution on a community. With toxic substances, such as lead, arsenic, and mercury, health benefits are sometimes difficult to quantify. Meanwhile, the EPA is chock-full of examples where benefits are underestimated and costs overestimated once programs are implemented and businesses find efficient ways of cutting pollution. In my part of the country, we call that Yankee intuition. Mr. Pruitt's argument ignores that it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the loss of IQ, increased risk of cancer, or other long-term health effects known to occur when exposed to mercury and air toxic emissions. In Mr. Pruitt's world, if we can't accurately translate loss of IQ into dollars lost, the benefits of cleaning up mercury for other children is ``too speculative'' for it to be ``necessary and appropriate'' for EPA to act. As a father of three sons, I find this way of thinking alarming. I have a poster here with a message from a woman in Wilmington, DE. Wilmington is in the northern part of the State, where our congressional delegation and Governor and his family live. This is from Sarah. I would ask Mr. Pruitt this: How much does it cost to lose an organ like I have, to lose a parent or child from cancer? How much do sick days and inhalers cost? Families are struggling to make ends meet. Many of these costs are not in dollars alone. Thank you, Sarah. Sarah is a mother and a registered nurse. She wrote to me earlier this month to express her concerns regarding Mr. Pruitt's nomination. In her letter, she explained to me that she was born in 1978, in Western New York State. It is miles away from the Love Canal neighborhood. It is the site of one of the most appalling environmental disasters in American history. For those who don't know or don't recall, Love Canal was a planned community that eventually had to be evacuated after 22,000 barrels of toxic waste were dumped into the nearby canal--22,000 barrels. Families whose homes were contaminated with chemicals and toxic waste had to leave. Many faced serious health challenges later in their lives. These were the real threats we faced before we had the EPA or laws on the books that held polluters accountable for dumping hazardous chemicals in our waters. Sarah's mother was pregnant with her while Love Canal was being evacuated, just 7 miles away from their home. Fast forward a few decades. When Sarah was 30, she found out that she had thyroid cancer. Doctors told her that exposure to radiation, perhaps from the radioactive hotspots near her hometown, is a proven risk factor for thyroid cancer. Sarah now has a daughter of her own who, unfortunately, suffers from reactive airway disease that causes her trouble breathing, and symptoms can last anywhere from a few minutes to hours at a time. Sarah, in her letter, said to me: Mr. Pruitt believes that the EPA places economic hardships on businesses through unnecessary regulation. True economic hardship is experienced by those who are often least protected by environmental laws. She went on to say: I would ask Mr. Pruitt: How much does it ``cost'' to lose an organ like I have? To lose a parent or child to cancer? How much do sick days and inhalers cost families already struggling to make ends meet? What is the life path of a person who starts out with compromised lungs? Many of these costs are not in dollars alone. Sarah couldn't be more right. An EPA Administrator must be able to understand the true human cost of rolling back or eliminating critical environmental regulations. Mr. Pruitt's persistent and extreme views--or at least extreme views in my mind--on the mercury and air toxics rule are some of the reasons I have grave concerns about his nomination to be EPA Administrator. I can't help but wonder if Mr. Pruitt will continue to fight this rule--not from outside the Agency, but from inside the Agency. I wonder if Mr. Pruitt would uphold the clean air protection that has bipartisan support or if he would kill the rule and take his extreme views of cost-benefit analysis broader, to other issues such as cleaning up lead in our water or addressing climate change. That is why I asked him not once, not twice, but three times about his views on the mercury and air toxics rule. I asked him directly three times if EPA should move forward with the rule and if EPA should be regulating mercury and air toxic emissions from powerplants. Each time I asked, the more evasive and misleading the answers became. In our three exchanges, I was very clear that I was asking about EPA's regulations and the authority to address mercury emissions from powerplants. However, in Mr. Pruitt's answers, he was very careful to mention that mercury pollution should be regulated under the Clean Air Act but never said that mercury and other air toxic emissions from powerplants should be or must be regulated. Mercury, as it turns out, is emitted by many sources. Coal-fired powerplants happen to be the largest emitter in this country. Under section 112 of the Clean Air Act, Congress listed mercury as a hazardous air pollutant and required the EPA to regulate all major emissions sources. It seems that Mr. Pruitt tried to avoid the questions I asked him about controlling mercury and air toxic powerplant emissions. He, instead, answered about regulating mercury more broadly. While he was trying to evade the questions, what he did say was very misleading to the committee. In our second exchange, I mentioned his three lawsuits against the mercury and air toxics rule. I asked Mr. Pruitt if he believed the EPA should not move forward with this rule and, if there were no rule, how would States clean up mercury? Mr. Pruitt answered: ``I actually have not stated that I believe the EPA should not move forward on regulating mercury or adopting rulemaking in that regard.'' He went on to say: ``There is not a statement--or belief--that I have that mercury is something that shouldn't be regulated under Section 112 as a Hazardous Air Pollutant.'' Well, anyone who supports the mercury and air toxics rule and heard that might be very encouraged by these comments. Sadly, Mr. Pruitt is on record many times stating that the EPA should not move forward regulating mercury and air toxic powerplant emissions. Here are a few quotes from the legal briefs that Mr. Pruitt filed in his many lawsuits against this rule that directly contradict his statements in our hearing. In his first lawsuit against the mercury and air toxics rule, called White Stallion v. EPA, Mr. Pruitt argued: ``Finally, the record does not support EPA's findings that mercury, non-mercury Hazardous Air Pollutant metals, and acid gas Hazardous Air Pollutants pose public health hazards.'' In his most recent case with Murray Energy, he argues that, with respect to powerplant mercury emissions, the ``EPA cannot properly conclude that it is appropriate and necessary to regulate Hazardous Air Pollutants under Section 112.'' These statements go well beyond questioning the ``process.'' Instead, they suggest the EPA should not be regulating mercury and toxic air emissions from powerplants. This is not what even Trump voters voted for in November. They did not go to the polls hoping that the new President would make their air dirtier or their water more polluted. This is another case of this nominee trying to mislead, or at least obscure, the truth before Congress. It is a troublesome pattern that I fear will only get worse if Mr. Pruitt is confirmed as EPA Administrator. With that, I reserve the remainder of my time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I want to continue to share with you and my colleagues the reasons I am opposed to the nomination of Attorney General Scott Pruitt to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. What we do know about Mr. Pruitt's past record--and there is still a good deal we don't know and are not able to learn in committee. We know Mr. Pruitt abandoned his responsibilities to protect Oklahomans from harmful pollution. Instead of holding polluters and bad actors in the State accountable, Mr. Pruitt spent a lot of his time as attorney general in Oklahoma suing the Environmental Protection Agency. These days, going after the EPA public health protection seems like a popular thing to do. In fact, the EPA is often a target of nasty tweets from our current President. Without the burning rivers or thick smog and soot in the air, which used to be all too common, some may presume that there is not much more for the EPA to do to protect the public health of our country from pollution. People may presume that our environmental protection problems are behind us, and States can take care of themselves when it comes to clean air and clean water, as Mr. Pruitt has suggested time and again. I am a recovering Governor, a former Governor for 8 years. I have huge regard for what Governors can do, States can do. There is a lot we can do, but not everything. That is not the idea--that States can simply take care of themselves when it comes to clean air and water, and there is no need for Federal oversight. It is just wrong. I think it is untrue. The EPA continues to play a critical role in protecting our health, especially for the most vulnerable, including the very young and the elderly. The environmental threats we face today are real and do not respect State borders. One such threat is ozone, known to some as smog pollution. Five times, Mr. Pruitt has sued the EPA over regulations to require new ozone, smog protections. Several of these lawsuits are still pending before the courts. Mr. Pruitt's actions against ozone health protection are deeply concerning to me, as I represent a State at the end of what many of us on the east coast call America's tailpipe. Emissions come up from the Midwest, largely, and blow from west to east and end up in our air and in our water. Ninety percent of the smog and air pollution in Delaware comes from outside of our State, partly from hundreds of miles away-- places like Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and across the Midwest. I said many times as Governor of Delaware that I could have eliminated every source of pollution within my State--shut down the factories, cleared every car off the road, stopped trains and transit or boats. Delaware would still face the deadly doses of air pollution, not from our own emissions, but from those blowing in our State from hundreds of miles away. We have a chart here to my left that we call the Ozone Report Card. Ozone is smog pollution. It deals not with quality of air pollution in Delaware, but it is a report card for Oklahoma. Cross-state ozone air pollution continues to be a major problem for our State, but it also is for many States across the country. In Mr. Pruitt's own home State of Oklahoma, every county with an air quality monitor--16 counties; they have more than 16 counties, but 16 have air quality monitors--has an unhealthy level of ozone pollution, according to the American Lung Association. The American Lung Association assigns grades in subjects, just as for our pages here in school. My home State has A's and B's. The Oklahoma Lung Association assigns a grade for ozone pollution. In these 16 counties, they assigned a grade of F, not just in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10--all 16. For decades, we have known that air pollution is linked to serious health problems like asthma attacks, strokes, heart attacks, and other respiratory illnesses. Most recently, ozone has been linked to early deaths. We have another chart that refers to Oklahoma's asthma rate. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6.3 million children in this country have been diagnosed with asthma--6.3 million children diagnosed with asthma. In Mr. Pruitt's home State of Oklahoma, 1 in 10 children have asthma, which is higher than the national average. That is 6.3 million children nationwide, and more than 112,000 in Oklahoma who have to worry, during the high ozone days, if they are going to have an asthma attack. Recognizing the very real dangers of ozone pollution, Congress passed the EPA to provide our country with the ozone air quality standards based on the best science available, and they review that standard every 5 years. After reviewing more than 1,000 medical and scientific studies, the EPA concluded about 2 years ago, in 2015, that the 2008 ozone health standard was too weak and no longer adequately protected public health. The EPA's 2015 rule was purely a statement of fact to protect our health. To protect the 6.3 million children with asthma, we need less ozone pollution in our air. To protect 112,000 children with asthma in Oklahoma, we need a stronger air quality standard. Fortunately, many of today's biggest emitters of ozone pollution, such as older coal plants, are already scheduled to be cleaned up. This means the costs of compliance are not as high as they might have been 2, 4, or 6 years ago. As attorney general, Mr. Pruitt had a choice between two paths. If he had taken the first path, Mr. Pruitt could have worked with his Department of Environmental Quality and the business community to ensure ozone polluters in his own State cleaned up. He could have worked with the EPA, not against it. By doing so, he would have protected Oklahomans and citizens living in downwind States from ozone pollution and helped economic growth and the State at the same time. It is important to note that many attorneys general in this country decided to take this path, including our own attorney general, Matt Denn, in Delaware. Instead, Mr. Pruitt took a second path, the one that led to suing the Agency, the EPA, in an attempt to weaken protections. It is no surprise that Mr. Pruitt chose to sue the EPA, based on his clear record. I have a poster here with some of his own words. After all, it was Mr. Pruitt who just last summer explicitly said it bothers him that Congress and the EPA work together to ensure Americans have clean air to breathe--or appears to say that. Specifically, here is what he said: Legislation should not be ``we like clean air, so go make clean air.'' That's something that bothers me, that then Congress gives to EPA this general grant of authority. That was at Hillsdale College in July of 2016. I would just ask, What then does Mr. Pruitt think the role of EPA is? It is hardly some kind of extreme overreach to keep deadly pollutants out of the air we breathe. I think most people think that. Mr. Pruitt chose to sue the EPA over the science used to justify in writing the regulations, citing the polluters over the medical and scientific experts who have published over 1,000 scientific studies that the EPA has reviewed. Mr. Pruitt did not stop there. He also sued the EPA over protections for downwind States. Delaware is one of them. Let me repeat that. Mr. Pruitt not only sued the EPA over science used in the 2015 ozone rule, but he also sued the EPA over the good neighbor rule to make sure all States do their fair share to clean up the air. Without the good neighbor rule, Delawareans, and all Americans living in downwind States, will be forced to live with the consequences of decisions made by polluters hundreds or thousands of miles from them. Mr. Pruitt took the stance that every citizen in this country does not have the right to breathe clean air. Mr. Pruitt took the stance that the lawyers and polluters know better than scientists and medical experts when it comes to ozone pollution and health. The President is asking us in this body to confirm Mr. Pruitt as our EPA Administrator. As Senators, we can also choose between two paths. The first path is protecting public health and ensuring that those who elected us have clean air to breathe. The second path is protecting polluters. I will be taking the path that protects the health of my constituents. I urge my colleagues to do the same for theirs. In just a moment, I am going to pause. Before I do, I mention this good neighbor rule. Some people call it the cross-border rule. The idea behind it is that we ought to treat one another as neighbors. Where does the good neighbor rule come from? It actually comes from the Bible. And it comes not just from the Bible, it comes from almost every major religion in the world--the idea that we ought to treat other people the way we want to be treated. If you look at every major religion in the world, it pretty much says that. In the New Testament, some will recall, there is a passage where the Pharisees were after this young Rabbi, a couple thousand years ago, trying to put Him on the spot. They said: You are so smart, young Rabbi, why don't You tell us what is the greatest rule of law, the greatest commandment of all? He said: Not one, there are two. He mentioned the first. Then He said: The second is love thy neighbor as thyself. One of the pharisees said to Him: Who is our neighbor? And He went on to tell them the parable of the good Samaritan. A man traveling through the country was attacked, left for dead in a ditch. Later in the day, three people walked by, one from a part of the country where this guy was sort of his neighbor. He walked on by. Next, a person of the cloth, a rabbi, walked on by. He didn't stop. The third guy that came through was from a place called Samaria. They are like at enmity, at odds with one another. They are not friendly; they are at odds with one another. He saw the fellow had been beaten and left for dead. He ministered to him and put him on his animal and took him to an inn. For a day and a night, he tried to help him get better. After the second day, the guy from Samaria had to leave and had to go someplace else. He said to the innkeeper: This fellow still isn't well enough to travel, but here is some money to help pay for his care here for another day or two. When I come back through, if you need more money or it costs more, I will even up with you. He left, but he left the guy who had been beaten in a lot better shape. After telling His story, the young Rabbi turned to the pharisee and he said: Who was the good neighbor? Well, there was the one--the first fellow who came by who took pity on the guy who had been beaten and left for dead and treated him the way he would have wanted to be treated. That is really the foundation of the good neighbor rule that the EPA has promulgated. It is the foundation of the idea that pollution does cross borders and because of that, we need to have--if we can't pass a law, we need some kind of rule or regulation to ensure that everybody is being a good neighbor because it is not fair that my State--that we can pretty much close down my State's economy, transportation systems, powerplants, and still have a problem with air quality. That is just not fair. I think next we are going to look at some editorial statements that are in opposition to Mr. Pruitt. I know there are editorial statements that support him. I don't have any of those today, not surprisingly. But I do want to go through a couple from newspapers around the country: New York Times, Bangor News up in Maine, L.A. Times, Denver Post, Chicago Sun Times, Dallas Morning News. I have received a number of letters from Delawareans about the nomination of Mr. Pruitt to lead the EPA. For the record, as of I guess last night, my office had received a total of seven letters, emails, or faxes supporting Mr. Pruitt's nomination. I guess this is from all sources, not just Delaware. But we have gotten seven letters supporting Mr. Pruitt's nomination. I received 1,880 letters opposing his nomination. That is pretty amazing. We don't get this kind of volume of letters, emails, or faxes, but 1,880 opposed, 7 letters supporting. But it is not just Delawareans who are worried about the idea of Mr. Pruitt at the helm of EPA; over the past 3 months, editorial boards across our country have expressed their own serious concerns about this nominee as well. I want to share a few of those with my colleagues and the world this morning. Back in December, the New York Times wrote these words. I will read them. This is from December, a couple of months ago: Had Donald Trump spent an entire year scouring the country for someone to weaken clean air and clean water laws and repudiate America's leadership role in the global battle against climate change, he could not have found a more suitable candidate than Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma Attorney General. That is a pretty bold charge. The editorial describes Mr. Pruitt's nomination--it goes on to say ``an aggressively bad choice''; ``a poke in the eye to a long history of bipartisan cooperation on environmental issues.'' Again, the EPA was not created in a law signed by a Democrat, it was by a Republican. The Times goes on to say ``bad choice''; ``a poke in the eye . . . to a nation that has come to depend on an agency for healthy air and drinkable water.'' And to the 195 countries that agreed in Paris last year to reduce their emissions, climate-changing greenhouse gas, in the belief that the United States should show the way, the Times concludes with these words: ``Mr. Pruitt is the wrong person to lead an agency charged with the custody of the nation's environment.'' The Senate cares about public good and needs to send his nomination to the dustbin. But I know that not everyone is a huge fan of the New York Times these days, so let's move a little further north. Let's go up to Maine. They have a paper up there called the Bangor Daily News. I have a poster from them as well. Last month, the Bangor Daily News Editorial Board wrote these words. Again, this is last month: As attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt has been openly hostile to the EPA's mission of protecting human health by regulating dangerous pollutants, such as mercury and carbon dioxide. Someone who has repeatedly tried to prevent the EPA from doing its job surely should be disqualified from overseeing the agency. You know, we generally believe that Presidents have wide latitude in choosing the members of their Cabinet. I think Governors should have wide latitude. As a former Governor, I said to our Delaware Legislature: I have been elected; give me the opportunity to put together my own team and judge us on our performance. However, some nominees of some Presidents are so--probably Democrats and Republicans, but especially in this case, with this President--some nominees are so unqualified or philosophically unfit that Senators should use their constitutional powers to reject them. Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump's pick to head the EPA, is one of those nominees. I voted for more of the nominees of this President than against. Several of them are quite good. I serve on a committee called Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. To succeed Secretary Jeh Johnson, the President nominated retired Marine general John Francis Kelly, who was a terrific soldier, marine, leader for our country, and will be a great Secretary. I wish they were all of his caliber. I wish they were. The Bangor paper went on to write: Critics of the EPA tend to focus on rules and laws that the agency is involved in writing that protect little-known animals or landscapes, such as wetlands. But, the agency's primary mission is to safeguard the health of Americans through landmark laws such as Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. Finally at the Bangor paper, they got to what is really at stake with Scott Pruitt at the head of EPA when we have a President who has repeatedly said he would like to get rid of the EPA in almost every forum. This is what they said at the Bangor News: We are under no illusions that Mr. Trump is suddenly going to become a champion of environmental protection, even if that is synonymous with protecting human life. But Pruitt is so hostile to the EPA's core mission that putting him in charge would move the United States dangerously backwards. But it is not just the east coast editorial boards that are worried about Scott Pruitt's nomination. Let's go to the west coast, the L.A. Times in California, the State that has led the way in environmental protection. The L.A. Times Editorial Board wrote--let's see if we have a date. It is February 4, this month. This is what they wrote: Yes, Trump won the election, and as president, he's entitled to appoint people who reflect his political views. But when the president's policies and appointees pose such a fundamental threat to the nation, even a Senate controlled by his fellow Republicans--whose first loyalty should be to the people of the United States--must put the nation's best interests ahead of party loyalty. They continue at the L.A. Times and say: Pruitt wouldn't run the agency as just another small- government Republican interested in paring excessive limitations on business. He actually disagrees with the fundamental mission of the EPA. He has argued that the federal government should play a lesser role in environmental protection, and that primary control should be given to the states. That is wrongheaded. Putting West Virginia, my native State, in charge of its coal industry or Texas in charge of its oil industry would lead to horrific environmental damage, not just there but in the neighboring States downwind and downstream, according to the L.A. Times Editorial Board. The L.A. Times Editorial concludes by saying: Putting Pruitt in charge of the EPA, however, poses an irreversible risk to the planet, and the Senate needs to ensure that doesn't happen. It is not just the coastal editorial boards that have opposed Mr. Pruitt. The Denver Post noted that--these are their words from 2 months ago, December 8, 2016: It looks like Trump truly does wish to dismantle the EPA. His pick of Scott Pruitt to lead it strikes us as unnecessarily reckless, and we urge the Senate to deny confirmation and to demand a better way forward. It is not on the poster, but the Denver paper went on to add: Does the Nation really want a Big Oil mouthpiece running the agency that's charged with the laudable task of keeping our air and water safe? Let's head up to Chicago, where the Sun Times was editorializing in the great State of Illinois. The Chicago Sun Times Editorial Board-- let's see what we have for a date. It looks like December 8, a couple of months ago. This is what they said: We are living in a time that calls for stepping up efforts across the board to protect our environment for future generations. Unfortunately, President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Scott Pruitt, an open foe of environmental initiatives, to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That demonstrates a callous disregard for the health of our nation and planet just as rapid technological advances hold out hope for avoiding the worst effects of climate change. It went on to say: During his campaign, Trump said he would dismantle President Barrack Obama's environmental policies and pull the United States out of the 195-nation Paris accord to reduce greenhouse gases and climate change. After the election, Trump moderated his tone, saying he has an open mind about climate change. His appointment of Pruitt, however, suggests that if he's open to anything, it's strictly more pollution. They concluded with these words: At a time when serious scientists worry about cataclysmic disasters threatened by climate change, we can't afford to put our future in the hands of an apologist for the fossil fuel industry. America needs an EPA chief who understands the value of environmental successes we have achieved and the critical importance of building on them. But perhaps these aren't convincing enough. Travel with me down to Texas because they have a problem even in Texas, in the Lone Star State. One of the newspapers there, the Dallas Morning News, wrote just last week: Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a veteran of a years-long courthouse campaign to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency, is the wrong choice to lead the agency under President Donald Trump. It's hard to imagine a worse choice. They highlighted the long-term impact of putting Mr. Pruitt in charge of the EPA. Here is what they said: The post of EPA administrator is a critical one, and nowhere is that more tangible than here in energy-rich Texas. Again, this is the Dallas Morning News: Many industry voices have already raised toasts to Pruitt's nomination, concluding that his plans to eviscerate the EPA's regulatory oversight of oil and gas companies, and other polluters, will strengthen the state's economic fortunes. The Morning News went on to write that the Senators from Texas must ``look beyond the short-sighted calculus and vote in the long-term interests of Texas. Put simply, Texas' economy will be stronger over time if its environment is cleaner and if its people are healthier.'' This is just one of a handful of the editorial boards that have raised serious and substantive objections to Mr. Pruitt's nomination, and for very good reason. They don't just come from the Northeast or from the east coast, they don't just come from the Southeast or the Midwest; they come from the west coast and even Texas itself. We ought to listen to them. We ought to listen to them. They are not all wrong. In fact, I fear they are right. With that, I see we have been joined on the floor by a young man from Connecticut who came to share some of his own thoughts with us on these important topics. I just want to thank him for the good work he does in so many areas. He and I have been partners together on trying to make sure the people of this country have access to affordable healthcare, and we get better results for less money, and I applaud him for those efforts, as he knows probably better than I, to try to ensure that people are healthy. It is not enough just to provide healthcare for them when they get sick. We call that sick care. We try to make sure we are doing things up front to prevent people from getting sick, to enable them to stay healthy. A lot of that really leads right to the work of the Environmental Protection Agency. Leadership is so important in everything we do. It is the most critical factor in everything. Leadership is the key to the success of any organization, large or small, that I have ever been a part of or observed. I don't care if it is a business, I don't care if it is a church, I don't care if it is a school, I don't care if it is a military unit, a sports team, or the U.S. Senate, leadership is key. The EPA is key. Show me enlightened, well-qualified leadership, and I will show you a successful operation. We need to be real careful in making sure the EPA has the kind of leadership that will lead them and our Nation well into the future. With that, I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, good morning to our pages and members of our staff, some of whom have been up all night. I just walked over here from my office in the Hart Building and, along the way, I ran into the Capitol Police and others who are putting in a long day and a long night. I, on behalf of all of us, want to express my thanks to them. I have said this on several occasions--that I take no joy in going through a chapter like we are going through tonight. I come from a State on the east coast where we get along pretty well. Democrats and Republicans sort of like each other. They tend to be mainstream, both on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. We have something called the Delaware way, and it is sort of based on the three C's--communicate, compromise, and collaborate. This is what we do. We have done it for a long time, and it seems to work for us. Hopefully, when we get through this chapter--when we get through the nomination process--we will be able to get back to the three C's. I have the privilege, as the Presiding Officer knows, that when I got out of the Navy I moved to Delaware, and I had an opportunity to serve in a couple of different roles--as the treasurer, as a Congressman, and then as the Governor for 8 years. In my time as Governor, according to laws and the constitution of Delaware, the Governor nominates people to serve as cabinet members, as members of the judiciary, and on a lot of boards and commissions. During those 8 years that I was privileged to serve as Governor, the legislature was split--the House was Republican, and the Senate was Democrat. When it came time to nominate members of my cabinet, my predecessor was Governor Mike Castle, as the Senator from Rhode Island knows. He was a moderate Republican, and he had been our Governor, and before that our Lieutenant Governor. He was a State legislator and a very successful attorney. When I was elected Governor, he was elected Congressman. So we literally traded places. He took my job in Congress, in the House, and I took his job as Governor. It was really a wonderful transition, where I tried to help him make that transition to be successful in the House of Representatives, and he tried very much to help me be successful as a new Governor. I, actually, went to something called the New Governor's School, hosted by Roy Romer, who was then the chairman of the National Governors Association--a wonderful guy. We were in the New Governor's School out in Colorado, the newly elected Governors of 1992--Democrats and Republicans, including people like George W. Bush, Tom Ridge, and the list goes on. If I had had more sleep, I could remember every one of them. It was just wonderful. Mike Levin, who later became the head of the EPA, was one of them. We learned a lot at the New Governor's School about how to set up and establish an administration, how to put together an administration. Mike Castle, Delaware's Governor, was part of the faculty, if you will, of current Governors who mentored us in the New Governor's School, and it was a blessing in my life. I asked Governor Castle, as we were going through that transition, to sort of walk me through his own cabinet and to suggest who might want to stay, who might be interested in staying on in a new administration--in my administration--and who, maybe, who would not. It ended up, when I nominated people to serve in my cabinet, that there were several there who had actually served in his. We had mostly Democrats. I am a Democrat. But there were some Republicans as well. Below the cabinet level, we had division directors, and we kept almost all--not all but almost all of the division directors we asked to stay, too. For 8 years as Governor of Delaware, I would nominate people to serve in either cabinet positions or on the judiciary or at other posts; but, for 8 years, we batted 1,000. The State executive committee was terrific in approving people, confirming people to serve in these roles. It was not like I just rushed things--here is who we are nominating. Go pass them. That is not the way they worked. I asked them for their ideas. We solicited their ideas, not just for the cabinet but, also, for the judiciary. At the end of the day, it was my role to actually nominate people, and it was their role to provide advice and consent, and they did--a little bit before but, certainly, throughout the nominating process. It worked pretty well. It worked pretty well for our State, and I am proud of the 8 years that our administration worked with the legislature and with nonprofit communities, the faith community, and the business community with what we accomplished. I was trained as a leader from the age of 12, and our Presiding Officer was trained as a leader, probably, from about the same age. We both served in the military. She is a retired lieutenant colonel, and I am a retired Navy captain. But I was trained that leaders are humble, not haughty. I was trained that leaders should have the hearts of servants, as our job is to serve and not be served. I was trained that we basically call on people not to do what we say but to do what we do. I believe in leadership by example. I was taught that leaders don't hold their fingers up to the wind and see which way the wind is going, but that we should have the courage to stay out of step when everyone else is marching to the wrong tune. I was trained that leaders do not lead by dividing folks but by uniting people--by building bridges, not walls. I was trained that leaders should be purveyors of hope--that we should appeal to people's better angels. I was trained that leaders ought to focus on doing what is right, not what is easy or expedient, that we should embrace the Golden Rule-- really, embody the Golden Rule--by treating people the way we want to be treated, that we should focus on excellence in everything we do and surround ourselves with the best people we can find. When the team that we lead does well, they get the credit, and when the team that we lead does not do so well, the leader takes the blame. I was trained as a leader with the idea that, when you know you are right, be sure you are right. You just never give up. You never give up. Those are the leadership skills that were infused into me by my family and my faith. I was in the military for 23 years, plus 4 years as a midshipman, and it helped make me who I am. Those are, really, the leadership blocks that I bring to my job here. We have had some great leaders in this body. We could use a leadership like I have just described at the top of the food chain in this country, in this administration. We could use that. I, thus far, after about one month into this administration, I haven't seen that kind of leadership that I had hoped for, that we had seen not that long ago. I want to commend everyone who has come to the floor in the last almost 20 hours on our side--the Democratic side--and on the Republican side to explain our points of view with respect to the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be Administrator for the EPA in this country. When Donald Trump was running for President, he said pretty consistently that part of what he wanted to do as President was to degrade and, essentially, destroy the Environmental Protection Agency. He didn't just say it once or twice but again and again. When he won the nomination, he said the same thing--that, if elected President, part of his goal would be to degrade and, essentially, destroy the Environmental Protection Agency. When he was elected President--a couple of days after being elected--he repeated that pledge. Sometimes people may not believe what we say, but they will believe what we do. For me, the first clear indication that what he said with respect to the Environmental Protection Agency was something that he intended to do was the selection of a person to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, and he chose the attorney general of Oklahoma Scott Pruitt. Scott was introduced at his confirmation hearing before the Environment and Public Works Committee by the two Senators from Oklahoma--James Lankford, with whom I serve on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee--he is a great member--and Jim Inhofe, who is our senior Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee. They have very high regard for Scott Pruitt. They have spoken here on the floor with regard to him and to his service. When someone whose service and friendship I value as much as I do--James Lankford and Jim Inhofe--speak so highly of a friend and a colleague from their State, it is not easy for me, and it is not easy for the rest of us to oppose that nominee--their friend. But we have done that. We have done that for weeks now, and we have done that now throughout this night. I take no joy in doing this. Having said that, I take no joy in the fact that the levels of the seas around my little State of Delaware are rising, and we are the lowest lying State in America, and we see every day the vestiges of sea level rise. I take no joy when I catch the train in the morning to come down here--I go back and forth every day--I take no joy in standing on the platform at the Wilmington train station and in looking at a beautiful riverfront, which we have worked on for 20 years so as to transform an industrial wasteland into something that is lovely, beautiful, and clean. Even now, with the fish that swim in the Christina River, we cannot eat them. In fact, from most of the bodies of water in my State, we cannot eat the fish, and that is because of the mercury that is contained in them. It is not just in my State, and it is not just in our neighbors' States--Maryland and New Jersey. It is in the States all up and down the east coast. We live in what is called the end of America's tailpipe. A lot of emissions that are put up into the air come from coal-fired plants to our west--from Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, which is my native State, and other States. They have, in many cases, really tall smokestacks, and they put their pollution--their air emissions--up through the smokestacks. They go up hundreds and hundreds of feet into the air. The air carries them out of their States. It carries the pollution out of their States, and where does it settle? It settles in ours. In States from Virginia on up into Maine. We live at the end of America's tailpipe. I take no joy that, of the freshwater fish in our State and a lot of other places on the east coast and, frankly, in other places around the country, you cannot eat those fish anymore. I want to take a few minutes and pivot from that as background to what we are going to look at--some charts--in a minute. Before we do, I want to talk about why we can't eat the fish in too many places around this country. And the reason why is because we get, I would say about 40 percent of our electricity from coal. Today it is maybe down to around 30, maybe 25 to 30 percent, and maybe 25 to 30 percent from natural gas. We get maybe 20 percent from nuclear, and the rest is from the renewable forms of energy, including wind and solar technology as it has gotten better and better and better. One of the reasons my colleagues, particularly on this side, have great concerns about the nomination of Scott Pruitt has to do with mercury. As I have shared with the Senate, a review of Mr. Pruitt's record yields some troubling information about how he managed the unit within his own office in Oklahoma charged with responding to environmental matters. Upon taking office, Mr. Pruitt essentially gutted his own Environmental Protection Unit within the attorney general's office. It appears he abandoned his responsibilities to use his office to protect the public health of Oklahomans and declined to use his authority to hold polluters and bad actors accountable. A review of Mr. Pruitt's record yields nothing that shows how he will change this behavior if he is confirmed to be EPA Administrator. In fact, the New York Times reported earlier this month, on February 5, that Mr. Pruitt is drawing up plans to move forward on the President's campaign promise to ``get rid of'' the EPA. Just remember, the EPA does not just involve clean air and clean water and the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. The implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act deals with hazardous materials and the products we use every day. The Environmental Protection Agency is a huge player in the public health of our country for not just adults like us but for young people like these pages, like my children, our grandchildren--all of us--our parents, grandparents. The EPA is in large part responsible for our being a healthier nation. I am a big believer in going after root causes for illness and sickness, and if you have mercury in your fish, if you have bad stuff in your air, it degrades your health, and that is a big problem. It is a big problem for us in Delaware because we spend a whole lot of money. Ninety percent of the air pollution in my State doesn't come from Delaware. It isn't generated in Delaware. It is bad stuff. It is air emissions that come from other States. They are able to burn coal, get cheap electricity, and because they put stuff in the air in tall smokestacks, they send it over to us. They end up with cheap electricity, lower healthcare costs, and we end up with having to clean up our emissions dramatically, more so than we otherwise would. It is expensive. So we end up with expensive electricity and also healthcare costs that are higher than the places where the pollution is coming from. That is just not right. I said earlier that I get no joy from going through this nomination battle for Mr. Pruitt with my friends on the other side, but believe me I get no joy from the idea that we end up with expensive electricity in my State and higher health costs because other people in other parts of our country don't embrace the Golden Rule, to treat other people the way you want to be treated. Going back to the New York Times article on February 5 that indicated that Mr. Pruitt is drawing up plans to move forward on the President's campaign promise to get rid of the EPA, they had these landing teams in the course of the transition to go through each of the agencies. The person who apparently was leading the administration's landing team into the EPA called for reducing the head count at EPA. They didn't say we are going to have a hiring freeze at the EPA. They didn't say we are going to have a 1- or 2- or 3-percent reduction. They didn't say we were going to reduce it by 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 percent. They said we are going to reduce the head count at the Environmental Protection Agency by two-thirds. I guess it is possible that whoever this person is that heads up the landing team of the EPA, maybe they don't have pollution in their State. Maybe the air is pristine, and they can get all the fish they want from all the other rivers, lakes, and streams. They don't have to worry about toxic waste sites or any of that stuff. I doubt it. I think part of our job is to make sure the EPA can do their job better, but the kind of draconian changes President Trump has talked about--and when you look at the record of the fellow they nominated to lead the EPA, you get the feeling that maybe they are not just talking. There is an old saying that sometimes people may not believe what we say, they believe what we do so let's just take a look to see what Mr. Pruitt has done in his own State of Oklahoma. I would say there are two sides to every story, and we are hearing two sides to every story. What I am going to do here is just draw on his own words. The New York Times story goes on to say that Mr. Pruitt ``has a blueprint to repeal climate change rules, cut staffing levels, close regional offices and permanently weaken the agency's regulatory authority.'' It continues: As much as anyone, Mr. Pruitt knows the legal intricacies of environmental regulation--and deregulation. As Oklahoma's attorney general over the last six years, he has led or taken part in 14 lawsuits against the EPA. His changes may not have the dramatic flair favored by Mr. Trump, but they could weaken the agency's authority even long after Mr. Trump has left office. And how will he achieve this objective of weakening the Agency's authority? First, by diminishing the scientific basis by which the Agency makes decisions. Mr. Pruitt does not seem to value or understand the science that is at the core of this Agency's actions to protect public health or the important role EPA plays ensuring all States are doing their fair share so every American can breathe clean air and drink clean water. One area where his propensity to disregard science is especially evident is Mr. Pruitt's extreme views on mercury and other air toxic pollution from electric powerplants. Much of our country's ongoing efforts to clean up air pollution hinges on every State playing by the rules and doing their fair share to reduce air pollution because the pollution generated in one State does not just stay in that State. The air carries it across State borders. Streams and rivers carry it across State borders as well. As I said earlier, in my home State of Delaware, we have made real strides in cleaning up our own air pollution that we generate. Unfortunately, the other States to the west of us have not made the same kind of commitment. As I said a few minutes ago, over 90 percent of Delaware's air pollution comes from our neighboring States. The air pollution is not only a danger to our hearts and lungs and brains, it also costs a lot in doctor bills and hospital bills and in our quality of life. Not all, but some of this pollution is toxic. It comes across our borders. These toxins that are in the air get in the food we eat as well as the air we breathe and build up in our bodies without our knowledge. Those buildups can lead to cancer, mental impairment and, in some cases, even to death. Delawareans depend on the EPA to ensure that our neighbors do their fair share so we can protect our citizens. It hasn't always moved as quickly as we would have liked, but without the EPA, our State of Delaware wouldn't have many other options at our disposal. Mr. Pruitt, however, seems to have spent a good part of his career fighting to dismantle the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. In my State, our neighboring States, those of us who live especially at the end of America's tailpipe depend on it for cleaner air and cleaner water. I have a poster here. Here is a fish, not one we would want to eat. The poster says: ``Why isn't Scott Pruitt convinced?'' The scientists and doctors tell us that mercury is a harmful toxin. Mr. Pruitt has been a part of multiple lawsuits against the Federal environmental protections--protections that are offered by EPA. Many of these lawsuits again are against clean air protections. He has fought against a rule to reduce mercury and other air-toxic pollution in this country three separate times. In 1990, Congress had enough scientific information to list mercury, as well as 188 other air toxics, such as lead and arsenic, as hazardous air pollutants in the Clean Air Act. Lawmakers at the time, including me, serving in the House of Representatives, thought this action would ensure our largest emitters of mercury and air toxins would soon be required to clean up. Unfortunately, it took 22 years for the EPA to issue the mercury and air toxic rule, which reduced mercury and other air toxins from coal- fired powerplants, our largest source of mercury emissions in this country. The EPA modeled this rule after what was being done in the States and required coal plants to install existing affordable technology that could reduce mercury and toxic emissions by 90 percent. The reason the EPA ended up having to go through all these processes over all these years in issuing this regulation is because Congress did not act in passing legislation, which we should have done. We could have, and we tried--a bipartisan effort--Lamar Alexander, a wonderful Senator from Tennessee, and myself, and others sought to get it done, and we were unable to get it done legislatively. We were opposed by the utilities, and in the end, the EPA said enough and we are going to issue this rule. But for a lawmaker who supported the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, and as someone who represents a downwind State, this rule is a long time in coming. You would not know this from the claims in these lawsuits, but since 1990, medical professionals and scientists have learned quite a bit about the environmental and health impacts of mercury. The mercury emitted into the air deposits into our water. It then builds up in our lakes and rivers and streams and eventually makes its way into our food supply, through fish and fowl that we eat. Children are most at risk, as many of us know. Pregnant mothers who eat the mercury-laden fish can transfer unhealthy doses to their unborn children, impacting neurological development of their babies. Prior to EPA's mercury rule, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that 600,000 newborns were at risk a year from mercury poisoning--600,000. In 2012, Dr. Jerome Paulson, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, testified before our EPW Committee, stating that ``there is no evidence demonstrating a safe level of mercury exposure.'' Dr. Jerome Paulson, American Academy of Pediatrics, testified before our committee in 2012. Again, he said: ``There is no evidence demonstrating a safe level of mercury exposure.'' Our Nation's most reputable pediatric organization, dedicated to the health and well-being of our children, has made clear that medical research shows there is no safe level of mercury exposure for our children--none. Mr. Pruitt has come to his own conclusions about mercury. The 2012 lawsuit that Mr. Pruitt joined with coal companies against the mercury and air toxics rule stated--this is what the lawsuit said: ``The record does not support EPA's findings that mercury, non-mercury hazardous air pollutant metals, and acid gas hazardous air pollutants pose public health hazards.'' I have to read that again. In the 2012 lawsuit in which Mr. Pruitt joined with coal companies against the mercury and air toxics rule, which was like 20 years in the making, finally adopted because Congress refused to act, said these words: ``The record does not support EPA's findings that mercury, non-mercury hazardous air pollutant metals, and acid gas hazardous air pollutants pose public health hazards.'' This is not the first time Mr. Pruitt contradicted the medical and scientific community on mercury and the threats it poses to public health. As I said, EPA took 22 years to get the coal plants to clean up the mercury emissions. Every year that our country delayed the cleanup of the emissions, more and more mercury settled and accumulated in our rivers, streams, lakes, and fish. I don't know how many lakes they have in Oklahoma, but I know that in 2010, there were fewer than 20 on which there were issued fish consumption advisories because of mercury. I know last year that number more than doubled. Every State, including Oklahoma, has fish consumption advisories because of mercury. As we see here, the number under Mr. Pruitt's watch has seen the mercury-caused fish advisories to actually more than double in the last 6 years. In 2012, Dr. Charles Driscoll from Syracuse University--one of the leading mercury scientists in the world--testified before our committee. Dr. Driscoll told us that because of the long-term emissions of mercury from coal plants, there are--his words--``hotspots and whole regions, such as the Adirondacks, the Great Lakes region of the Midwest and large portions of the Southeast, where the fish is contaminated with mercury.'' He went on to say: ``There are more fish consumption advisories in the U.S. for mercury than all contaminants combined.'' Instead of agreeing with leading scientists on this issue, Mr. Pruitt has come to a different conclusion. I think we have a poster that speaks to this. Mr. Pruitt's 2012 lawsuit with the coal companies against EPA's mercury protection stated: The record does not support EPA's finding that mercury . . . poses public health hazards. . . . Human exposure to methylmercury resulting from coal fired EGUs is exceedingly small. Mr. Pruitt argued that, despite the fact that every State has at least one mercury fish consumption advisory and despite there being 40 lakes in his own State of Oklahoma now that have mercury fish advisories, we shouldn't worry about mercury pollution from our country's largest source of emissions. That denial of facts makes no sense. Luckily, the courts rejected Mr. Pruitt's arguments that the mercury and air toxic rules should be vacated. Four years later, most coal plants are meeting the new standards, and we are already seeing the benefits. Just a few weeks ago, some of my Environment and Public Works colleagues and I heard from Dr. Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and former EPA Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances, about this very issue when she said: ``U.S. efforts to reduce mercury emissions, including from power plants, are benefiting public health faster than could have been predicted in 1990.'' Great news. Dr. Goldman's comments stand in stark contrast to the ones made in Mr. Pruitt's latest mercury lawsuit, filed just 2 months before his confirmation hearing. In this most recent lawsuit, Mr. Pruitt argued that the benefits of cleaning powerplant mercury emissions are ``too speculative'' and--again, his words--``not supported by the scientific literature.'' Really? The lawsuit goes on to conclude that it is not ``appropriate and necessary'' for the EPA to regulate mercury and other air toxic emissions. So Mr. Pruitt argued just 3 months ago that it is not appropriate or necessary for the EPA to regulate the largest source of mercury pollution--a pollutant that we know damages children's brains and could impact up to 600,000 newborns every year. Just 3 months ago, Mr. Pruitt listened to the industry instead of listening to our Nation's pediatricians when determining what is good for our children's health. Just 3 months ago, Mr. Pruitt sided with coal companies instead of our leading scientists. Just 3 months ago, Mr. Pruitt argued that States should be on their own when it comes to dealing with toxic pollution that crosses State borders. In Mr. Pruitt's confirmation hearing, I asked about these lawsuits and his views on regulating mercury and air toxics from powerplants. He was evasive and misleading, I believe, in his answers and claimed his lawsuits were merely about process. Process. Well, let's be perfectly clear. Mr. Pruitt's lawsuits are trying to undermine a rule that protects the health of our children and our grandchildren. His extreme views on mercury pollution clearly show Mr. Pruitt believes that Americans have to make a choice between having a strong economy and a safe, clean environment. I think this is a false choice. We can have both, and indeed we must have both. His extreme views on mercury pollution also show that Mr. Pruitt will side with polluters over science and doctors--maybe not every time, but way too often. Americans deserve an EPA Administrator who believes in sound science and who will listen to the medical experts when it comes to our health and be able to strike a balance between a strong environment and a strong economy. I don't believe Mr. Pruitt will be such an Administrator, which is why I am asking my colleagues to join me in voting against his confirmation. I see we have been joined on the floor by the Senator from Indiana. I am prepared to hit the pause button for a few minutes and welcome my friend. I welcome him and thank him for his commitment, not just to the people of Indiana but to our country and embracing the Golden Rule, the idea that we have to look out for each other. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I thank my friend for those kind and generous remarks. I thank him for coming to Delaware. I have been privileged to visit the Hoosier State any number of times. I have a basketball in my office from Notre Dame, and I know our friend from Indiana is a huge Notre Dame fan. Their basketball coach, Mike Brey, is the former basketball coach of the University of Delaware. Just like air pollution and water pollution can move across borders, so can head coaches of great basketball teams. Tomorrow night, God willing, I will be at the Bob Carpenter Center at the University of Delaware to watch the University of Delaware's men's basketball team play. Our new head coach is one of Mike Brey's assistants who has come to our State to head us up. We look forward to seeing how he and our Fightin' Blue Hens do. I thank the Senator for sharing--a whole lot less air pollution-- after stealing our basketball coach, a very good replacement; I guess not the player to be named later but the coach to be named later.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, my friend from Kansas is here. A lot of people around the country think there is probably not much we agree on. I want to say that I agree with just about everything the Senator from Kansas just said. And the fact that 95 percent of the world's markets are outside of our borders--if we lose sight of that, forget about the value of exports; we make a huge mistake. I was a supporter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I believe the Senator from Kansas was, as well. Some people are saying: Well, we need to forget all about that, and what we need to do is renegotiate NAFTA. In the context of negotiating the transpacific trade agreement, we negotiated NAFTA. I hope you won't throw out that baby with the bath water as we go forward. I commend the Senator for his remarks and say how much I enjoyed working with him on many issues. I hope to work with him again. Madam President, I mentioned earlier today before the Presiding Officer took the chair that I received a lot of letters, emails, phone calls, and faxes from Delawareans who are concerned about the nomination of Mr. Pruitt to lead the EPA. As of today, my office has received a total of 7 letters supporting Mr. Pruitt's nomination and we have received 1,880 letters opposing his nomination--remarkable numbers. Please compare this number to the 278 letters my office received opposing the nomination of Congressman Tom Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. That is pretty amazing. The Republican nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, 278 letters against; Mr. Pruitt, 1,880 letters and emails against. Delawareans are clearly paying attention, and they are clearly concerned by the idea of Mr. Pruitt being charged with safeguarding our environment and our health. I want to take a moment to read a letter sent to me--I have gotten a lot of letters--a letter sent to me last week from a woman named Danielle D., a new mother and small business owner who lives in Wilmington with her infant son. Danielle wrote to me because her concerns go beyond politics and to the core values of giving our children the best lives possible. Danielle writes: Dear Senator Carper, I am reaching out to you today as both a new mother and a small business owner urging you to oppose Scott Pruitt's nomination as Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As a business owner, I support a number of President Trump's cabinet nominations and many of his pro-business policies. But there are very few policy decisions that touch every facet of our lives like environmental policies do. Our environment affects our health, our economy and our everyday lives. The decisions we now make will affect Americans for generations to come. She goes on to say: My son is 5 months old. Like any parent, I can only hope I am able to advance my son's life by leaps and bounds, as my parents did for me. However, I am extremely concerned that, should Mr. Pruitt be chosen as the next Administrator of the EPA, the decisions we make today will make it nearly impossible for me to leave my son a better environment than the one I brought him into. In short, we need an EPA Administrator who will work to prove America is the best when it comes to environmental policy. Mr. Pruitt is not that person. I share this letter today so that our colleagues know that my constituents and, indeed, Americans across the country do care deeply about the person who will lead the EPA, although they may support other nominees of President Trump. Those who have contacted us want to know that the individual leading the EPA is on their side and that the first question that person will ask is, How will this affect the environment and how will this affect the health of the least of these, like Danielle's 5-month-old son? Clearly, thousands upon thousands are afraid or fearful that Scott Pruitt doesn't care to ask those questions and that he will not be an advocate for the American people whom the EPA is charged with protecting. I share their concerns. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that of the postcloture debate time under my control, that 50 minutes be yielded to Senator Merkley.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I just want to follow up on the comments of my friend, the chairman from Wyoming, and I note that Scott Pruitt has responded to more questions than anyone in EPA history since Gina McCarthy, the past Administrator who responded to more than 1,400 questions, and she actually responded to them completely, not evasively and not indirectly. She needed more time, given the volume of questions, and more time was granted so she might more fully answer the questions that were raised. I just wanted to add that if I could. Mr. President, I come to the floor to share with you and with our colleagues the reasons I oppose the nomination of Attorney General Scott Pruitt to be the EPA Administrator. Over the last month, we have had a number of President Trump's nominees come before the committee and be debated on the Senate floor, as you know. We have had multiple confirmation hearings in a single day, with Members running to and from hearings trying to learn more about nominees and get important questions answered. So I understand if some of my colleagues who have attended back-to-back hearings have not yet delved into Scott Pruitt's record as deeply as we have on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and that is why we are here today. As ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I, along with my colleagues on the committee, have scoured Mr. Pruitt's record to the best of our ability with the somewhat limited information the nominee has provided. We sat through his nomination hearing, where we asked him fundamental questions about his views on the role of the EPA and what he would do to protect our environment and public health. We submitted additional questions we had for the record and read through all of Mr. Pruitt's responses. We have done our due diligence with the information we received, and I want to share with my colleagues and all of those watching exactly why, based on this review, I cannot support Mr. Pruitt's nomination. First, I think it is important to revisit just why the EPA is still so critical. This Agency was created 46 years ago by a Republican President named Richard Nixon with the support of a bipartisan Congress. Their task was implementing our Nation's most important clean air, clean water, and safe chemical laws. The EPA is required to use sound science to protect both our environment and our public health, and, by and large, the EPA has done it successfully--not perfectly but successfully for decades while our economy has continued to grow. Many people may not remember a time before the EPA, a time when States had to work individually to protect citizens in the communities in which they lived, a time before the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act were signed into law, a time when businesses operating throughout the United States were faced with a myriad of conflicting State and local laws affecting our health and environment. The choking smog and soot of a half century ago seems unfathomable now. Rivers on fire and deadly toxic plumes sound like something almost for another world, impossible in our United States of America. Today we have the luxury of largely forgetting these frightening circumstances, thanks to the efforts of the EPA and its employees, in partnership with State and local governments and with countries and companies and businesses across America. The EPA and its many partners throughout the country have been so successful that it is easy for some of us to forget why this Agency is so critical. Some may presume there is not much more for this Agency to do. That could not be further from the truth. The environmental threats we face today are real. They don't respect State boundaries. Over time, my State of Delaware has made great strides in cleaning up our own air pollution, but our work only goes so far. In Delaware, like many States on the east coast, we sit at the end of what is known as America's tailpipe. Ninety percent of the pollution in Delaware comes from outside the First State, from plants hundreds of miles away in places like Kentucky, Ohio, my native West Virginia, Indiana, and throughout the Midwest. As Governor of Delaware, even if I had eliminated every source of air pollution within our State by stopping every combustion source and ordering every motor vehicle off our roads, Delawareans would still face deadly doses of air pollution. Should Delawareans be forced to live with consequences of decisions made by polluters hundreds or even thousands of miles away from us? I don't think so. I don't think so. That is not the Golden Rule I know. Fortunately, the EPA has recently implemented something called the good neighbor rule to make sure all States do their fair share to clean up our air. Every citizen in this country has a right to breathe clean air, regardless of where they live, whether they live in a downwind or an upwind State. That is why we have the EPA. We have known for decades that most of the mercury in our fish comes from air pollution that is emitted from the dirtiest coal plants and then settles in our waterways. We know mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that accumulates in our body over time, threatening the health of this generation and generations to come. The EPA recently issued public health protections to clean up the toxic air pollution from our dirtiest coal plants, allowing families in Danville, where I grew up alongside the Dan River, and thousands of other communities that can once again eat fish from our rivers, lakes, and streams without concern of mercury poisoning. That is why we have the EPA. Too often, when States and local communities are pinched for cash, they try to save money by shortchanging clean air and water protections. Improvements to infrastructure are often ignored, corners are cut, and solutions are adopted that may save dollars now but inflict costly unnecessary damage later. As we have seen most recently in the city of Flint, MI, these cuts can have a terrible and even tragic impact on the health of the most vulnerable in our society, especially on the youngest among us. Today, the citizens of Flint still lack clean drinking water, and a new generation in that city which has been exposed to high levels of lead faces an uncertain future. That is why we have the EPA. Many people don't know it, but Delaware is the lowest lying State in our Nation. The highest point in the State of Delaware is a bridge. Back home, the reality that our climate is changing is not up for debate. Families and business owners face the stark realities of climate change almost every single day. Tackling that challenge is not just the right thing to do or what is best for Delaware's economy, it is a matter of survival. Our little State alone cannot stem the flow of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere that is largely causing our climate to change, our seas to rise, and our coastlines to retreat. Every State--every State--must do its fair share to safeguard our climate and their neighbors. That is why we have the EPA. Examples of the air and water pollution produced by one State and fouling the air and water of others can still be found in too many parts of America, like the runoff from Pennsylvania that degrades the waters of the Chesapeake Bay or the haze exported from other States that oftentimes shrouds the Smoky Mountains and degrades visibility at the Grand Canyon. That is why we have the EPA. Throughout my years in the Senate and as a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have had the opportunity to consider the credentials of five different nominees to serve as EPA Administrator-- individuals put forth by both Democratic and Republican Presidents. I have supported candidates in the past because they were able to clearly demonstrate their commitment--candidates like former New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Whitman and former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt. I was proud to support them both, proud of their service, and proud of their role as head of EPA. But I have supported candidates like them because they clearly demonstrated their commitment to advancing the mission of the EPA--the mission to protect human health and to protect our environment. Never have I been forced to consider a candidate to lead the EPA who has been so focused throughout his career on crippling the Agency he now seeks to lead or so hostile to the basic protections to keep Americans and our environment safe. So, with that, I am going to close, and I will come back many times in the hours to come as we continue the consideration of this candidate's nomination. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I said repeatedly on this floor that I take no joy in discord and disagreement. I am not one who is interested in obstruction. I come from a little State like Senator Coons, where we get along pretty well. We believe in the three Cs--communicate, collaborate, compromise. But you know what else gives me no joy? I get no joy from rising sea levels from New England to Miami that threatens our way of life. It threatens our way of life. I get no joy from fish advisories that keep us from eating fish in every State in this country. I get no joy being one of the States at the end of America's tailpipe, where we get all this pollution from other States and end up with higher costs and worse healthcare. I get no joy from the millions of kids who go to school this week with their inhalers because they have asthma. I get no joy from people who appear before us as nominees, take 1,000 questions for the Record, and give us answers that in too many cases are evasive, indirect, or incomplete. I get no joy from nominees who appear before us who pledge to provide information requested by us responsibly, including electronic media, and never give it to us, who fight for 2 years to make sure we never get it. I get no joy from those circumstances. Thomas Jefferson used to say: If the people know the truth, they will not make a mistake. We are prepared to vote here with incomplete information, without the kind of wisdom we could have and vote with if we would wait 10 days--10 days. That is what it would cost. Is that a long time? Ask Gina McCarthy. She waited 132 days to get a vote. If you think 1,000 questions are too many to answer, ask Gina McCarthy. She answered a lot more. Finally, the Republicans got their answers, and we got our vote. She won and, I think, did an admirable job. We need the truth. We are seeking the truth. I have no interest in obstruction. I want the truth. Vote no.