Ed Markey: “I just want to follow up on what Senator Booker has been talking about. This is a historic nomination tonight. This…”

“I just want to follow up on what Senator Booker has been talking about. This is a historic nomination tonight. This reminds the country so much of James Watt being nominated in 1981 to be the Secretary of the Interior. That turned out disastrously. He had to resign. This reminds the Nation of the nomination of Anne Gorsuch, in 1981, as the head of the EPA. That ended disastrously. She had to resign. We are just repeating history here today as we are going through the very same stages of an administration--a radical rightwing, anti- environmental administration--that is trying to dismantle environmental laws across our country. It did not end well back then, and this will not end well. Scott Pruitt, as attorney general of the State of Oklahoma, has not demonstrated the qualities that are going to be necessary in order to protect the environment of our country. Today, many of us recognized a day without an immigrants. Businesses across the country closed, students did not attend classes, and workers did not head to their jobs--in protest. In my own home State of Massachusetts, the museum at Wellesley College took down all of the works of art that were created and donated by immigrants. Bare walls, empty desks, shuttered restaurants--all of these things--show us just how essential, how fundamental immigrants are to our economy and to the very fabric of our Nation. Now imagine if tomorrow we recognized a day without the Environmental Protection Agency.…”