Andrea Joy Campbell: “I take this opportunity to offer my wholehearted support for Gale Norton's nomination. After all the rhetoric about Ms.…”

“I take this opportunity to offer my wholehearted support for Gale Norton's nomination. After all the rhetoric about Ms. Norton for the last month, it only took two appearances before the Energy Committee to get an 18-2 vote. That may not be unanimous, but it is mighty close to it. It is certainly overwhelming. I believe it is evidence that an overwhelming majority of the committee knows she is an outstanding candidate for the job. She has proven she is knowledgeable, articulate, and capable of enduring round after round of detailed questions while being the object of pretty outrageous charges and mean-spirited ads paid for by her extremist detractors. She handled it, as she does everything, by simply focusing on the job at hand. The more she sat in those hearings, the more she convinced our colleagues that she is the right person for the job. My Democrat colleagues on the committee saw, as with several other Bush nominees, that getting through this nomination process is not easy. The environmental groups that focused on her simply were wrong. Her management direction and experience have been proven over and over, and I was pleased to hear some very enthusiastic and commendable words from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and other side of the dais in our Energy Committee before we voted to send her nomination to the floor.”