Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the Senate Finance Committee is working this week on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It is a very important piece of legislation that the country is looking forward to having passed.

This is a Republican plan to give tax relief to the American people. Just as the name of the legislation says, it actually addresses both issues: tax cuts and jobs.

First of all, the legislation will cut the taxes for American workers. One of the biggest cuts in the plan is that it roughly doubles the standard deduction that people take. Right now, the standard deduction for a married couple is about $12,000. If we double it, people will not pay any Federal income taxes at all on the first $24,000 they earn. That is a big tax cut. It is aimed squarely at lower income and middle-income families in this country.

A lot of people will decide to take this deduction instead of going through the painstaking process of itemizing deductions on their income tax returns. It saves people a lot of time. It also saves them the cost of accountants and lawyers who help them figure out the complicated taxes that they end up paying in this country each year.

Republicans are also working to preserve other deductions that are important to American families. When we put all of these together, we are going to cut taxes for people and put money back in their pockets instead of sending it to Washington.

The second thing to know about this tax relief legislation is that it is going to be a big boost for jobs in America. In fact, it will help America create more than 900,000 new jobs.

It is also going to lead to higher pay. That is because the legislation will cut the taxes that small businesses have to pay. Small businesses create most of the jobs in America. If we let them keep more of their money, they can hire people and grow their businesses. That is what happens in this country. That is how our economy works; people hiring people matter to grow the economy. They can also give workers a raise and offer better benefits. When Washington takes less and businesses keep more, workers are better off every time.

Republicans also want to bring down the rates that Washington charges other businesses. A lot of people work for small businesses, but a lot of people also work for large businesses as well. If we are able to cut taxes for those businesses, then those workers can get the same raise. How much more money are we talking about? Well, according to the Tax Foundation, it amounts to about $2,600 for a typical middle-income family. That is what you get when you combine the tax cut and the pay raise that people will see across the country. For that family, an extra $2,600 is going to be a very big deal. A majority of Americans say that they don't have enough savings today to cover a $500 emergency expense if one came up.

Millions of American families will be far better off because of the tax relief that Republicans are working on this week. It will boost the economy, help individual workers, and help their families. This is about tax cuts, and it is about jobs. That is how you keep the economy growing. That is how we keep American families thriving.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, 1 year ago, the American people went to the polls. The American people demanded a change. They demanded a change from 8 years of too little economic growth and too much government control and regulations. The effect was immediate, and the effect was incredible.

In the past year, we have gotten a lot of very good news about the American economy. Right after the election, businesses became much more optimistic about the direction of our country and they started hiring. Last Friday, we learned that in the United States we have created more than 2 million jobs since election day 2016. Someone said to me: Well, you shouldn't count it from election day. You should count it from Inauguration Day. Certainly, in my home State of Wyoming, on election day there was a confidence, an optimism, a positive feeling that started just at the moment it was announced that Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States.

Right now we have the lowest rate of unemployment since the year 2002. We have seen the economy grow at more than 3 percent for the past 2 quarters. Consumer confidence just reached the highest level in almost 17 years. All of this is happening since President Trump was elected, and this is very good news for America.

We can't stop now. We have to do all we can to keep on this path toward a more prosperous country. Americans are optimistic because they know that President Trump is focused on easing the regulations that have held back our economy for the last 8 years. We know that government can create opportunity or crush opportunity based on a combination of regulations, mandates, and taxes. We are now in the land of opportunity, eliminating the regulations and pulling back on taxes to helping our economy grow.

The President has signed legislation that we passed in this Congress repealing one after another of the Obama administration's rules, regulations, and restrictions. President Trump has issued Executive orders cutting back on excessive redtape. President Trump has appointed very good people to important jobs who are committed to reining in Washington's out-of-control bureaucracy. All of these things are important and critical to keeping our economy growing.

Another big part is what we are trying to do now in terms of cutting taxes for the American people. People want to keep more of their hard- earned money in their own pockets.

Here in the Senate we now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to cut taxes in a way that will actually help American families. We can help families directly by raising their incomes, and we can help them indirectly by growing the economy. Here is how we can do both, because that needs to be our goal.

The first thing we can do is to give people a raise by doubling the standard deduction. If we raise the deduction, people keep more of their hard-earned money, and it makes taxes simpler. Right now, the standard deduction for a married couple is $12,000. Two-thirds of Americans take this deduction. If we roughly double it, people will not pay any Federal income tax at all on the first $24,000 they earn. That is a big cut. It means that a lot more people will decide to take this deduction instead of having to go through the painstaking process of itemizing their deductions on their tax return. It saves them a lot of time, it saves them a lot of headaches, and it saves them the cost of accountants and lawyers who have to help figure out the very complicated tax system in this country. Millions of families will be better off just from this one tax cut alone.

A second thing Republicans are looking to do is to reduce the tax rate for small businesses, the people who are creating jobs all across the country. If someone owns a small business in my home State of Wyoming, she probably ends up paying the taxes on her personal tax return rather than on a separate business tax return. If we cut her tax bill, that is money she can then use to give her workers a raise, to hire more people, and to create more jobs in our community. She can put money back into the business to help grow the economy as well.

When you leave more money in people's pockets, they get to decide how to use that money--what they decide to spend, what they decide to save, and what they decide to invest. People are much better watching their own money than the government ever was, giving people value for that money.

So we want to make sure that tax reform includes a break for small businesses. Around here, they use the

words ``tax reform.'' To me, it is about tax reduction, tax relief, and tax cuts. Republicans also want to bring down the rates that Washington charges other businesses. If we can cut the rate businesses pay from 35 percent down to 20 percent, that could be an enormous boost to the economy. Economists who look at this say it is like giving the average American family a $4,000 a year raise. That is how much the average household's income would go up, because workers actually bear most of the burden of taxes that businesses pay.

Now, Democrats actually think the money belongs to Washington. It doesn't. It belongs to the people at home who earn it. Democrats often think that if you give Americans even a single dollar in tax cuts, you are taking away Washington's money. It is not Washington's money. The money belongs to the people at home.

We know the exact opposite of what the Democrats believe to be true. Republicans know that giving Americans a tax cut is the same as giving them a raise. Every dollar a family doesn't have to send to Washington in taxes is a dollar they can use for something better. It is a dollar they can use for food, for shelter, for kids, for education, for things that matter to their family. It is another dollar a small business can use to pay its workers more or reinvest in the business to help grow the economy in that community. Tax cuts mean that people decide how to spend their own money; Washington doesn't decide. Families know how to use money much better than Washington ever will.

As we debate these issues and ideas with regard to tax relief, we have an exciting opportunity to give the American people a raise and to give the American economy a boost. This is something a lot of people have been working on for a long time in the Senate. Over the past 6 years, the Finance Committee has held 70 hearings on how to make our Tax Code better for all Americans.

Republicans are working, and we are listening to make sure that we get the tax reform right that the American people and families need. When it comes to tax cuts, I believe the more the better. The more people who get a tax cut, the better. The more we grow our economy, the better. It is our job. It is about paychecks. It is about jobs. It is about prosperity. It is about a strong and healthy economy for America. That is what we as Republicans are committed to. We cannot let this opportunity pass.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, President Trump has been in office now for more than 9 months. He has laid out his agenda to cut punishing regulations, to grow the economy, and to help hard-working Americans.

President Trump's administration has already taken important steps to roll back the regulatory rampage of the last 8 years. During the last administration, the Environmental Protection Agency issued harmful and punishing, overreaching regulations that hurt workers in my home State of Wyoming.

According to the chamber of commerce, from 2008 to 2016, the EPA issued regulations that cost our economy over $60 billion each year-- significantly more than any other Federal agency. These rules had real- life impacts. The Obama administration's so-called Clean Power Plan would have closed powerplants and cost America jobs. We can have both clean air and a growing economy. We have proven it.

My goal is to make American energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, without raising costs on American families. President Trump shares that goal. That is why EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has led the charge in cutting redtape. The EPA has taken important steps to roll back the Clean Power Plan and other punishing EPA regulations.

It is interesting. The annual cost of high-impact rules by agencies from 2008 to 2016--there were 13 rules by the EPA--in the red right here, billions and billions and billions--over $60 billion.

Administrator Pruitt needs his full leadership team in place at the Agency to complete the task, so today the Senate is going to vote on cloture so we can consider the nomination of Bill Wehrum. He has been nominated to serve as EPA's Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. Mr. Wehrum has more than three decades of experience in environmental policy. He has worked as an environmental engineer, a public servant at the EPA, and is an environmental lawyer. His time at the EPA includes 2 years of service as the Acting Administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation--the same office he has now been nominated to lead.

EPA's Office of Air and Radiation is critically important in terms of a division within the Agency. It develops national programs, policies, and regulations for limiting air pollution and radiation exposure. One of the responsibilities of this office is implementing the Clean Air Act, and it is a big job.

Here is a chart. Most EPA regulatory burdens come from EPA air regulations; 94.5 percent from the Office of Air and Radiation regulatory burden in 2014; only 5.5 percent from all other EPA offices' regulatory burden of that same year. So under the Obama administration, the air office was one of the biggest regulatory abusers. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the EPA's air regulations were responsible for 95 percent of the cost of the Agency's regulations. Now Mr. Wehrum is going to play a key role in undoing this redtape.

The American people need a qualified leader in the EPA air office. Bill Wehrum is the right man for the job. Don't take my word for it; former environmental Obama Justice official John Cruden said this of Mr. Wehrum: ``I believe he is committed to achieving clean air for all citizens and carefully following sound and current science.'' Marcus Peacock, an EPA Deputy Administrator during the Bush administration, praised Mr. Wehrum, saying that his ``understanding of the Clean Air Act may be second to none. His desire to pull up his sleeves and actually make the Clean Air Act work as a practical matter is second to none.''

Mr. Wehrum's expertise and experience will be tremendously helpful as he pursues policies that will protect America's air, undo regulatory overreach, and allow our economy to grow. I urge all Senators to vote for cloture on Mr. Wehrum's nomination.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, Mr. Wehrum has been nominated to serve as the EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. He has more than three decades of experience in environmental policy. He has worked as an environmental engineer. He has been a public servant at the EPA as an environmental lawyer. His time at the EPA includes years of service as the Acting Administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation, the same office to which he has now been nominated.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor Susie McMurry.

On November 10, 2017, the Greater Wyoming Council of the Boy Scouts of America will hold their annual ``Strength of America Banquet'' and celebrate Susie McMurry, a remarkable Wyoming philanthropist. Every year at this event, the council honors an individual who made invaluable contributions to the community and demonstrates the values of the Scout oath and law.

Susie McMurry is a perfect choice to receive this special recognition. She is a role model in our community and truly represents a spirit of citizenship, leadership, and service. Throughout her life, Susie has always demonstrated an enduring devotion to God, her family, and Wyoming. She loves her family. She loves her home State of Wyoming. She loves her country.

She truly exemplifies the Scout promise ``to help other people at all times.'' Should an opportunity arise to improve the life of a child, Susie is the first to offer her assistance, time, and resources. Susie strongly supports programs for children that focus on mentoring, developing leadership skills, encouraging community service, and building self-esteem. She believes ``Children are the sunshine in our lives. If we don't take care of our children, our world will be without sunshine.''

Her parents raised her with a deep understanding of the importance of giving back. While growing up, her parents always lent a helping hand and opened their homes to individuals in need. Throughout her life, she has tried to follow their example. For nearly 30 years, she and her husband, Mick McMurry, were foster parents. They provided a safe and caring home for hundreds of children in Wyoming.

Susie is a strong, compassionate, and caring woman. In 1946, she was born in Casper at Memorial Hospital of Natrona County. She called both Elk Mountain and Hanna home before eventually moving to Casper. Susie discovered her calling to help children early in life. She studied elementary education at Casper College and the University of Wyoming. After graduation, she returned to Casper and taught first grade at Crest Hill Elementary School.

She met her husband of 41 years, Mick McMurry, in Casper. On December 21, 1973, Susie and Mick McMurry were married in Glenrock, WY. A few years later, they adopted their daughter, Trudi, and Susie retired from teaching. In 1979, Susie and Mick became foster parents. Their second daughter, Jillian, was adopted from the foster program. Susie has eight grandchildren: Lou Davis, Tayla Davis, Tillie Holthouse, Ellie Holthouse, Evie Kaschmitter, Lily Kaschmitter, Max Kaschmitter, and Andrew Kaschmitter. She also has one great-grandchild, Neil Campbell. In 2015, Susie, the McMurry family, Casper, and the State of Wyoming mourned the loss of her husband, Mick. Susie's compassion and strength continues to guide her family and our community.

The McMurry family has a remarkable history of helping people across the State of Wyoming. Susie explained, ``One of our goals is to teach the younger generation how to give back, how to participate, and love making a difference.'' Mick and Susie established the McMurry Foundation in 1998 with a mission to make a significant and beneficial impact on the lives of others. Guided by the values of excellence and compassion, the foundation has awarded more than $50 million since it was established. It focuses on education, religion, children and advocacy for children, health and human resources, the arts and humanities, and favorable business environments.

Buildings across the State bear the McMurry name as a mark of gratitude for their wonderful support. The number of places in Wyoming that have benefited from the contributions of the McMurry family is incredible, but one organization especially dear to Susie is the Wyoming Medical Center. Susie has spent a tremendous number of

hours volunteering her time and talents to the benefit of everyone who comes through the doors. She feels that the health of a community is directly tied to the health of its people.

The values that Susie and the McMurry Foundation promote go hand in hand with the mission of the Boy Scouts of America. They both work to ensure youth have the knowledge and skills needed to become future leaders of Wyoming. Their continued focus on education, leadership, and community service will serve these young people and our State for generations.

Susie's kindness, generosity, and grace are true reflections of her character. She believes that fulfillment in life comes from making a difference in the lives of others. Whether it is volunteering at the Wyoming Medical Center to support patients and families or raising funds for the Boys and Girls Club of Central Wyoming, she has made a huge difference in the lives of so many people. Susie continues to have a positive and lasting mark on our community.

It is with great honor that I recognize this exceptional member of our Wyoming community. My wife, Bobbi, joins me in extending our congratulations to Susie McMurry for receiving this honorable distinction.

Mr. President, this week the Senate is moving through a series of votes to fill vacancies in the Federal appeals court. President Trump has nominated highly qualified, mainstream judges and legal scholars to do these jobs. Now, Democrats have responded once again with delay and with obstruction. It is clear to me that we need to change the rules in the Senate that govern how we debate nominations in this body. All year Democrats have been putting up roadblocks to nominations. They have forced the majority leader to file cloture so that

then we can confirm nominees like these four judges.

As of last Friday, Democrats have forced the Senate to file cloture 47 different times when we have had to have cloture votes on President Trump's nominees. There were only six cloture votes at this point for the previous four Presidents--five for Obama, none for George W. Bush, one for Bill Clinton, and none under the Presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush. These are the kind of hoops that the Democrats have been making the Senate jump through in an effort to confirm President Trump's nominees.

The procedure has been set in place to allow for debate. Well, debate is a good thing in the Senate, as long as debate is actually occurring. It is a chance for Senators to stand up, to say what they like or what they don't like about a nominee. Now, if no one wants to debate, we should just move things along and have the vote. There is one Senate rule that allows for as much as 30 hours of debate time on Presidential nominations after we have actually had the cloture vote. Now, in reality, very little of that time that is spent on the Senate floor is actually being used for the debate. In the past, both sides would agree to waive the time requirements and to move on to other Senate business, which is what we need to do to get the country continuing to move forward. But what is happening now is that Democrats are insisting on cloture votes, and then they are insisting that we use hour after hour after hour, even when there is no one here to debate what is the issue or the person in front of us.

It is time to end this pointless spectacle. The Senate used to be called the world's greatest deliberative body. Democrats have turned it into the world's most paralyzed deliberative body.

We have more than 125 nominees for various jobs who have had hearings in committee, who have testified in committee, who have been voted on in committee, who have cleared through the entire committee-vetting process and are now waiting for a vote on the Senate floor--125 of them. Most of these people have bipartisan support. They will be confirmed easily and eventually. They should be confirmed immediately. There should be no reason for Democrats' stalling tactics except, once again, to slow down the pace of other progress in the Senate on legislative issues.

Mr. President, look at what happened with one judge last week. It is a case you are very familiar with. Scott Palk was nominated by President Trump to serve on the U.S. district court. He had bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee. He went to the committee, had a hearing in the committee, and with bipartisan support was voted out of the committee. That was in June--more than 4 months ago.

Now, apparently that is not good enough for the Democrats--not at all. They are only interested in slowing down the work of the Senate. So we had a cloture vote on the nominee. It was 1 of the 47 cloture votes that we talked about. We had to have a cloture vote. Every Republican and 27 Democrats voted for him. So he had bipartisan support. We still had to allow all of this wasted time for the debate. We couldn't conduct any of the other business of the Senate during the time because the Democrats insisted that we use all of the debate time. Now, they could have very easily agreed to waive the rules, as we do, and go straight to a vote. We wanted to do that. The Democrats refused.

So how much of that time--those 30 hours--did the Democrats actually spend on the floor debating this person's qualifications to be a Federal judge? How many of those 30 hours did the Democrats use? None. How many minutes did they use? None. Not one Democrat came to the floor of the Senate to talk about that judge. Not a single Democrat even bothered to say a word against his nomination. There were fewer than 20 minutes of total talk on the floor of the Senate. Through hour after hour after hour of ongoing time, there were fewer than 20 minutes spent actually talking about the judge, and it was all spent in praise by the Republicans. We still had to run out the clock because that is the delay game the Democrats are playing in the Senate. The Senate had to waste hours and hours when we could have finished debating in less than 20 minutes. The Democrats have done this same thing time after time after time, day after day, wasting day after day.

Things take time in the Senate. We understand that. That is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they formed the two bodies of Congress, the House and the Senate. There is no excuse, though, for Democrats abusing the process to make things take even longer. Democrats aren't using the rules for debate. They are not using the rules for deliberation. It is only for delay. It hasn't always been this way, and there is no reason it should continue to be this way.

The Senate had a different standard for nominations a few years ago, and that was in the 113th Congress. In years 2013 and 2014, the Senate allowed just 2 hours of debate after cloture was invoked on nominations for district court judges. That is 2 hours more than the Democrats actually spent debating this judge's nomination last week. The rules said that we would have up to 8 hours to debate executive branch nominations below the Cabinet level. Then, for Cabinet Secretaries, for Justices on the Supreme Court, and for circuit courts, it was the full 30 hours of debate. Thirty hours now is what we allow every nomination today, and Democrats have shown that in most cases it is far too much time because even though we have to spend all the time, they use very little of it talking about the nominees.

We need a fair debate on every nomination. The procedure from 2013 and 2014, with fair debate on nominations, is one that was fair. The way the Democrats are wasting time today to keep us from doing our work is not fair. I believe it is time to return to the rules for debating nominees that the Senate used 3 years ago. There will still be plenty of time for Senators to debate the nominees, to raise objections if there are any. Every Senator could be on the record. There are just a lot of hours that we could avoid that are being wasted today that could be used to do the people's business of this country. A President's nominations of qualified people to important jobs was never meant to be a tool for delay in the Senate or to be an obstruction the way the Democrats have been using it.

Now, these rules that we used in 2013 and 2014 were the result of a compromise. Democrats controlled the Senate at the time. A Democrat, Barack Obama, was in the White House making the nominations, and Republicans agreed to make these changes to the rules. It was part of a bipartisan group, and I was part of that group. There were eight Senators. They worked on this compromise--four Republicans and four Democrats. Senator McCain and Senator Alexander were part of this group. Senator Schumer, who is now the Democrat leader, was part of this group. There was overwhelming support for these changes on both sides of the aisle.

It is time to do it again. Let's change the Senate rules and go back to the process that Senator Schumer supported in 2013 and 2014. Today, the schedule allows us to do one or two nominations in a typical week. If we go back to the 2014 standard, we could clear multiple nominations in a day. The Republican Senate has been busy this year, and we have made progress on behalf of the American people. We have passed 15 resolutions rolling back destructive, Obama-era regulations using the Congressional Review Act and signed into law by the President. We passed a budget that will help give Americans at home a raise by cutting their taxes and giving us an opportunity to do the kind of tax relief, tax reform, tax reductions, tax cuts that the American people are looking for. We need to do more. It is time for Democrats to stop abusing the rules just to delay the process. It is time to go back to the previous standard of debating nominations. It is time to pick up the pace and do the job the American people expect us to do.

Now, if Democrats have a different approach and don't want to accept the standard of debate that was set in the previous Congress, then I believe it is time for us to force that change. If Democrats maintain their lockstep opposition to real progress on judicial vacancies and other nominees, we should give them a chance to vote on their continued obstruction. We can vote on these nominees in a straightforward

and efficient way or we can vote to return to the precedent of the 113th Congress. That is the choice. Either way, it is time to vote.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, President Trump has been in office now for more than 9 months. For this entire time, Senate Democrats have been trying to obstruct him from doing the very job that he was elected by the American people to do. The President has laid out his agenda to create jobs, to grow the economy, and to help hard-working American taxpayers. Yet Democrats will do everything they can to stop the President from putting his team in place to accomplish these goals.

They have tried to stop the President's legislative agenda because they know that his policies will actually work. When Republican policies become law, Democrats know that the people will see how successful these Republican policies are. I think Democrats are worried that they may never win another election again once we get these policies into place. That is why we have seen a record number of delays and obstructions by the Democrats in the Senate. They have done it on legislation, and they have even blocked the President from filling some of the most basic jobs within his administration.

It started on day one. Normally, on Inauguration Day, the President gets a substantial number of people confirmed to his Cabinet. The idea is to let the President get his team in place so that it can hit the ground running. President Obama had six of his Cabinet Secretaries confirmed on Inauguration Day, and President Bush had seven Secretaries confirmed on Inauguration Day. These confirmations were by voice vote, but that was not the case with President Trump--just two with rollcall votes on Inauguration Day.

Republicans in the Senate did not do anything to try to block the Cabinet Secretaries for President Obama, for we understood that it was best to give a new President a chance and for all of us to work together when we could. With George W. Bush, it was seven. That is how it usually works, but not anymore--no, not with this group of Democrats in the Senate. They really were never interested in giving President Trump a chance. They really do not seem to be working together. Last January, President Trump had two people confirmed to the Cabinet on Inauguration Day--the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security. They were the only two jobs that the Democrats allowed the President to fill.

In President Trump's first 9 months in office, Democrats have continued to block the way. They have allowed just 185 of his nominees to take their jobs. That is how ridiculous the Democrats have been in trying to keep President Trump from putting his team in place. By this far into the administration at the same time, President Obama had 364 nominees in place. The Democrats have blocked judges, Cabinet Secretaries, and other high-ranking officials.

Now, it is interesting because you have seen this. Many of these nominees even have Democrat support, and they are not controversial at all, but Democrats are doing everything they can to slow down the process. During President Obama's first 9 months, he had 364 confirmed. So President Obama had gotten 2 for every 1 that President Trump has gotten confirmed.

There are 81 of President Trump's nominees who have gone through the committees and another some number today. They are 81 people who have been nominated by the President for positions in the government who are just waiting right now for a vote on the Senate floor. Many of these people got through the nomination process in June but are still waiting and being blocked by Democrats in the Senate. It is outrageous.

Do Democrats really think that these are not important jobs--that they do not need people in those jobs to do the important work that they have been assigned to do?

I believe that we should confirm as many of them as possible today. There are 13 judges waiting for confirmation. There are 8 U.S. attorneys waiting, including the U.S. attorney from my home State of Wyoming. These are important jobs.

We all understand that there is a process that we need to go through to fill these positions--to make sure the people are vetted and to make sure they are the right people for the jobs. All of these people have followed the process. They have been doing everything they have been asked to do in that they have filled out the paperwork, filled out the disclosures, and have gone through the committees. Now it is time for the Senate to get its work done. I would say let's do it today.

Interestingly enough, in August, the Democrats finally allowed a significant number of people to be confirmed. More than 60 people were confirmed by voice vote on one day. That is the kind of thing that used to be very routine in the Senate--letting a large number of noncontroversial nominees be approved all at once. It is now time to do it again. There is a significant backlog. So I want to get these folks confirmed now. It is time to clear the deck and let these people get to work who have been nominated and vetted, who have gone through the committees and been approved.

We need to move these nominations because we have more nominations on the way. We are going to have to deal with the nominations of two Cabinet Secretaries for positions that are currently vacant. President Trump has nominated Kirstjen Nielsen to be Secretary of Homeland Security. It is an important job, and she is very qualified for it.

Do the Democrats plan to block her confirmation to be Secretary of Homeland Security? Do the Democrats plan to obstruct this qualified woman from doing the important job she has been nominated by President Trump to do?

The President deserves to have his team in place. The Senate has an obligation to get that work done. The Department of Homeland Security deserves to have a Secretary in place to keep us safe. That is how it has worked in the past and how it should be working now.

These people manage major Departments of the government. They manage many career workers. We know that the Washington bureaucracy has grown tremendously over the years and that it is very difficult to eliminate people who aren't doing their jobs properly. We have seen it in the scandals over the years. Remember the Gold King Mine disaster? President Obama's EPA--the group who is supposed to protect the environment--actually dumped 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater in a river in Colorado. Remember the scandals involving bureaucrats in the Department of Veterans Affairs, the IRS, and the General Services Administration during the Obama administration? We need Presidential appointees in place overseeing these Federal workers to make sure that the government of the people is accountable to the American people.

The Senate needs to be involved in providing oversight through our power of advice and consent. Democrats don't want that to happen. They have been keeping the Senate from providing that oversight, dragging out the process, making sure that the bureaucrats whom they seem to have more faith in are accountable to the American people rather than those whom the American people voted for on election day.

These are important jobs, and we have qualified people ready to do the work. Democrats have delayed for 9 months. It is time to break that logjam today.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, last week, the Trump administration took a very important step, the step to end the war on coal and the war on American energy. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that it has begun the formal process to roll back the Obama administration's so-called Clean Power Plan. This plan was a cornerstone of the Democratic efforts to destroy the reliable forms of energy that the American public continues to use today.

My goal is to make energy as clean as we can as fast as we can without raising costs on American families. The Trump administration wants exactly the same thing. The steps it announced last week will help provide greater energy security, more jobs, and a stronger economy. This is exactly what President Trump promised he would do. It is exactly what the American people voted for last November.

Americans said that they were tired of Washington's out-of-control regulators. President Trump took action right away. He issued an Executive order in March, telling his administration to go back and review some of President Obama's worst energy regulations. One of those was the Clean Power Plan, which tried to regulate powerplants in a way that wasn't even allowed under the Clean Air Act.

President Trump's Executive order was the first step in correcting this bureaucratic overreach. Last week's announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency was the next step. With this move, the Agency is saying that Washington will no longer trample on the law. It tells the rest of Washington that there are limits. So I applaud President Trump and Scott Pruitt, the Administrator of the EPA.

The Agency was created because America needed to do a better job of making sure we had clean air, clean land, and clean water. There is a right way to do this job. For a long time, the Agency did its job well. We can strike and need to strike the right balance. We need to do that again so we can protect our environment while allowing our economy to grow. We can have reasonable regulations that protect Americans while also respecting the law.

My home State of Wyoming is one of the most pristine, beautiful places in the world, and it is one of the most energy-rich places in the world. Wyoming has struck this balance successfully, and so have many other States. We are addressing threats to our environment through the cooperation of States, towns, Indian Tribes, and Washington.

The Environmental Protection Agency did not get the balance right with its Clean Power Plan. It overstepped its bounds to fulfill a political agenda. In 2008, when Barack Obama was running for President, he said that under his policies, ``If somebody wants to build a coal- fired power plant, they can.'' But he went on to say, ``It's just that it will bankrupt them.''

Bankrupt them. Once he got into office, he did everything he could to keep that promise and to bankrupt as many coal companies as possible. The Obama administration pushed out unnecessary, unlawful regulations on coal producers, powerplants, and their customers.

Look at the difference between the two Presidents. President Obama promised to bankrupt American energy producers, and then he misused his power in order to do it. President Trump promised to promote American energy security and economic growth, and he is following the law to do that.

The law never gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to write its Clean Power Plan. The Agency went ahead and did it anyway. That is why States sued the Federal Government to block this destructive bureaucratic overreach. States knew--people knew that the Environmental Protection Agency had written a dangerous regulation that would shut down American powerplants and would raise energy costs for American families. Their rule would have thrown thousands of people out of work in Wyoming and in other States. It would have led to as much as $33 billion in compliance costs in the year 2030. That is what the Agency estimated--$33 billion in compliance costs.

Last year, the Supreme Court decided that this rule could do so much damage that the Court stopped President Obama in his tracks. Last week, the Agency recognized that there is a better way. It is going through the process to set aside the old rule and take a fresh look at what it could or should do legally. It said that any regulation of these powerplants is going to be done the way every new regulation should be done. That means listening to the people who have the most at stake, like the States and communities affected by these regulations. It is especially true in places like Wyoming, where there are already partnerships in place that could accomplish many of the goals of the new rules. It means that Washington should consider the costs as well as the benefits of regulation, and it should use reasonable estimates about both the costs and the benefits.

In 2015, the Supreme Court criticized the Obama administration for another rule that made this same mistake. The Court said that it is not ``rational, never mind appropriate, to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.''

If Washington is going to write regulations the way they should be done, this means acting rationally, and it means following the law.

The Clean Air Act didn't give the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to write its so-called Clean Power Plan. That should have stopped the regulators right there and then. It should not have been a sign for regulators to interpret the law in a brandnew way that Congress never intended. That is what the Obama administration did anyway.

If Washington does regulations right, that means doing them in a way that provides clarity, not confusion, not more questions. It means doing what is best for America, not just what is the preference of the people writing the regulations.

We are blessed in this country with enormous natural resources. Our goal should be to use these resources responsibly, in ways that protect our environment and help to make our economy grow. We need a strong economy. That is what the American people are looking for.

Over the 8 years of the Obama administration, the leaders of the EPA created broad and legally questionable new regulations. They declared a war on coal, and a war on American energy. Under the Trump administration, the war is over, and America is back on the right track.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to the Gingrich nomination, the motion to consider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the Trachtenberg nomination.