Political Quotes

“I rise today to voice my strong support for the nomination of Derek Kan to be Under Secretary for Transportation Policy at the Department of Transportation. The Commerce Committee held a hearing on his nomination on June 8, 2017, and reported his nomination favorably out of Committee on June 29, 2017, by voice vote. It is now November 9--over 4 months since the nomination was reported out of Committee. This noncontroversial, well-qualified nominee has been languishing in the Senate for far too long. It is truly unfortunate that we have to go through the cloture process on this particular nominee, who is well known to many of us in the Senate due to his previous work as a Senate staffer. To illustrate how noncontroversial and well-qualified this nominee is, less than 2 years ago, Mr. Kan was confirmed by voice vote in the Senate to be a director on the Amtrak Board of Directors. The only thing that has changed in the 2 years since Mr. Kan was previously confirmed is that some on the Democratic side have decided to hold this nomination hostage, as well as the nomination of Ronald Batory to be Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration--a very important position, I might add--and the nomination of Adam Sullivan to be Assistant Secretary of Transportation for legislative affairs, pending assurances that the Trump administration will approve and fund the multibillion dollar Gateway project in New York and New Jersey.…”