Political Quotes

“I rise today to oppose the nomination of Radhika Fox to be Assistant Administrator for Water at the EPA. I certainly appreciate her willingness to serve, and I have found her to be quite personable and friendly. So this is not a personal statement. But even though she is not yet confirmed, she is already in place as the lead political appointee in the Water Office of the EPA. In that capacity, her recent announcement of overreaching regulatory proposals under the Clean Water Act cemented my opposition to her nomination. Ms. Fox's position on the appropriate scope of the Clean Water Act was not clear last month when I voted on her nomination in the EPA committee, of which I am the ranking member. At that markup in May, I noted that I could not support Ms. Fox at that time because she would not commit to maintaining the navigable waters protection rule issued in 2020. As I noted at the time, she would also not state that the 2015 waters of the United States rule was overreaching. So I really couldn't pin her down on any opinion on this very important rule. I now know why she would not commit to maintaining the navigable waters protection rule when she testified before the committee and avoided providing direct responses in her written responses to my followup questions. The administration did not support the rule and, apparently, the EPA opposed it completely. Last week, Ms. Fox and EPA Administrator Regan, as well as the U.S.…”