Jim Inhofe: “we recently said goodbye to a lot of really good, hard-working men and women from the previous administration, and I…”

“we recently said goodbye to a lot of really good, hard-working men and women from the previous administration, and I want to highlight a few of them. We refer to them--some of my friends and some of my enemies refer to them as the ``Inhofe mafia.'' It comes from the committees that I have chaired, both the Armed Services Committee as well as the Environment and Public Works Committee. But anyway, they are really a great bunch of people. I am going to start with Andrew Wheeler. Andrew Wheeler was with me for a number of years--14 years--before he became the Director of the EPA. Here is a guy who was nominated to be the Administrator. At that time, I said that there is no one in America who is as qualified as Andrew Wheeler for this job. The first job he had out of law school was with the EPA. When he was nominated to be Administrator, I kind of gave his whole life history. All of my Senate colleagues know Andy and have known him for a long period of time--Democrats and Republicans. He has worked for me in the Senate as well as becoming one of my ``has-beens,'' as we refer to people who used to be with me and are still my good friends. Andy started in my personal office as chief counsel and went on to serve as the staff director and chief counsel during my time as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.…”