Roy Blunt: “I rise to discuss my hold on the nominee whom we will be voting on this afternoon, Gina McCarthy. Gina McCarthy is the…”

“I rise to discuss my hold on the nominee whom we will be voting on this afternoon, Gina McCarthy. Gina McCarthy is the President's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. There is no doubt that there are lots of things to be concerned about with the Environmental Protection Agency. There are 12 States that just sued the EPA over the Agency's sue-and- settle tactics. There are rules and regulations, if they are allowed to go forward, that will raise energy prices. There are lots of issues to debate, and we will continue to debate those. This is about a more targeted area. I have only been in the Senate for a couple of years. What is a hold? A hold is put on a nomination when there is a problem that needs to be solved or for a problem that just can't be solved. Some may object to the nominee or some may object to something that has happened that should permanently disqualify that particular individual from any job. This is a hold on a problem that could be solved. This is one of the things that individual Senators still have the ability to do. This is not intended to stop a nominee but to at least make it more difficult for that nominee to be confirmed. It is one of the things we can do to say: Let's do what we can to solve this problem. It has to be defensible. In my view, it has to be something a Senator is willing to talk about. We did away with the so-called secret holds in the Senate in recent years so we know who has the hold.…”