Political Quotes

“I rise to speak about the Gina McCarthy nomination to head the EPA and in particular efforts I have led with my Republican colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee to bring a whole lot more sunshine and transparency to EPA--something that has been sorely, sorely lacking for a long time and has been a particular problem, really reached new depths in terms of a problem in the last 4 years. When this important nomination first came up, I focused specifically on these important transparency, openness issues. I have disagreed with the Obama administration EPA on all sorts of substantive issues, including, for instance, to take the most obvious, their war on coal. I disagree with both the past Administrator and this nominee, Gina McCarthy, on all of those key substantive issues, such as this war on coal, but I specifically chose not to focus on that in the nomination. I knew President Obama won the election. I knew he had a fundamentally different view than I do on those key environmental and economic issues. What I focused on with other Republican members of our committee was something that should be beyond dispute, beyond partisanship, really beyond debate--the need for openness and transparency with regard to what EPA does and why they do it. This has been a battle I have been waging for a long time, including on the EPW Committee. I think this is a crucial issue.…”