Harry Reid: “I came to this session of Congress as chairman of this committee, the committee of jurisdiction dealing with Christine…”

“I came to this session of Congress as chairman of this committee, the committee of jurisdiction dealing with Christine Todd Whitman. For 17 days, I was chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. One of my first acts was to hold hearings regarding Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. Part of me said this is my chance to stand out. This is somebody who wants to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, someone whose name has been submitted to us by President Bush, whom I did not support in the election. I thought it would be a time to set a real good record show, maybe not a lot, but a significant number of Senators, that they should vote against her. I went into the hearing with that direction: What could we do to show that she would do a bad job. We had questions from all types of her enemies in the State of New Jersey, many of which we asked orally; the others we submitted to her in writing. I say candidly, this woman did a great job before the committee answering these questions. We went through four different rounds of questions. Some Senators sat through the entire hearing. It was long. It started at 9:30 in the morning and ended around 1 o'clock, as I recall, or 1:30 p.m. that day. She, I repeat, answered every question we submitted to her. She did not appear to be evasive.”