Tom Carper

There are really serious questions about your heart.

The air is poisoned, asthma rates, lead poisoning rates, the water is poisoned because corporations, pressing their hand and their power and their money, have been able to poison communities to the extent that you have autism rates, birth…

Your studies, this one, in the case of that chemical, that affects farm workers and children, was 1,000 time higher than the ultimate EPA standard.

When I apply the 'right thing to do' test to this, the idea that I represented industry combating EPA on a particular substance, and later on I am going to have the opportunity, as part of the EPA leadership team, to determine whether or…

I regret to say that my second concern with our nominees today before us is the nomination of Bill Wehrum.

Let me just say the idea that we are 9 months into a new Administration, an Administration that has proposed deep cuts in the budget for EPA, deep cuts to the number of people who work there, deep cuts to the programmatic support of clean…

The tobacco industry has manipulated and obfuscated scientific research into the dangers of smoking for decades.

I just don't see why you can't just say I would recuse myself. I don't get it.

But we can do better than that. EPA needs to do better than that. They need to show us more progress, and when we do we will be happy to move these nominations forward. I don't think that is asking too much.

I have said more than a few times if the shoe were on the other foot, and we had a Democrat in the White House, and we had a Democrat majority in the House and the Senate, and the Republicans on this Committee or any committee were trying…

I was disappointed not to hear it today from at least two of our witnesses.

I think he is a good person, but he is not, in my judgment, a good choice for this particular job.

I would imagine that somebody would be nominated that has a track record of standing up for those vulnerable people in our nation.

We need to flip. So you are saying we need to flip either the House or the Senate to get real, true tax reform?

I think bipartisanship is very important for a reform that will be sustainable.

Let us find out what is working and let us do more of it.

I was in Wyoming last weekend, Camden, Wyoming. It is a little town just south of Dover, Delaware.

According to the Forest Service's NEPA handbook, the agency has, I don't know, 30, 40, maybe 35 categorical exclusions at its disposal.

First of all, welcome one and all, colleagues. It is great to see you back here, and thank you for all the good work that you continue to do with your life.

I am delighted to be holding this hearing; it is an important one for all of us, whether we are from the great northwest or a little State on the east coast.

I understand that the Forest Service has authority, I think explicit authority, to use categorical exclusions up to, what is it, 3,000 acres now?

I would love to have them have more resources and more tools to use that existing exemption, as opposed to going further for something they really don't need yet.

It just seems peculiar.

Before we go ahead and pull the rug out from the States--we need to hit the pause button.

That is actually an ad hominem attack, which I think is actually beneath the dignity of this body.