mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: we expect that vote to occur sometime within

the next hour. the presiding officer: thank you. mr. schumer: i yield the floor.

:

the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate will proceed to consideration of h.r. 335, which the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 335, an act to provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as secretary of defense within seven years of relief from active duties a a regular commissioned officer of the armed forces. the presiding officer: up to 30 minutes of debate on the bill.

mr. reed: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: madam president, i would ask unanimous consent to yield back all time. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection.

the clerk will read the title of the bill for the third time. the clerk: h.r. 335, an act to provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as secretary of defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the armed forces. the presiding officer: the question is on passage of the bill. mr. reed: madam president, could i ask for the yeas and nays? the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vet: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? on this vote, the yeas are 69, the nays are 27. the 60-vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. a senator: thank you, mr. president. first, i ask -- the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. take your conversations outside, please. the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: thank you it madam president. first i'd like to ask unanimous

consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: madam president, i come to the floor today to urge the swift confirmation for tony blinken to be the secretary of state. like we saw with avril haines yesterday and moving towards lloyd austin today, we need to hold a floor vote on mr. blinken's nomination urgently. mr. blinken is well known to the senate, having previously been confirmed as deputy secretary of state, having served as the deputy national security advisor, and of course as the staff director of the senate foreign relations committee before that. he's superbly qualified to be the secretary of state and his knowledge and thoughtfulness

were on display during five hours of testimony earlier this week. and since then he's been asked to respond to hundreds of questions. as a matter of fact, he has had an inordinate number of questions that have been put to him for the record. he had nearly over half a hundred before his hearing. he has had from a couple of our colleagues nearly 600 questions, including multiple parts to those questions. and, to my knowledge, he has largely answered them all, notwithstanding the size, the magnitude of it. now, i have been, since i arrived in this institution, one of the big advocates of the prerogatives of each and every individual senator and of the

institution, so i take a backstep to no one. but there is a difference between prerogatives and prerogatives that are abused which in essence are for the purpose of ultimately going ahead -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. menendez: -- which are for the purpose not of seeking information but for the purpose of delaying a nomination. now, i appreciate the senator risch, the present chairman of the committee, has been working with me to try to accelerate mr. blinken's nomination to the floor, but i would ask my colleagues, particularly those on the committee, to join he and i inen effort to bring -- in an effort to bring one of the important national security positions in our government to the floor for a vote. i don't think we should be leaving this weekend without a vote for the secretary of state. he is the right person to repair

and restore our alliances, to rebuild and renew the state department, to reinvigorate the relationship between the department and congress, something that i think republicans and democrats alike have agreed have soured dramatically. his testimony, his opening statement, his answers to questions show that he will be a working partner with this institution but obviously confirming mr. blinken is not just about the nominee himself. it's about doing what the american people expect and the constitution requires. providing advice and consent to ensure that national security officials are in office in a timely manner. we're facing challenges in every corner of the world. the world is on fire. from iran to russia to venezuela to global challenges that define our times and defy borders, like covid, migration, and climate change.

we can't afford delaying to put mr. blinken in office. we can't allow the state department to be rudderless. if we don't have leadership, we can't be sure that china or russia and others won't fill the vacuum, as they have for the last several years. or do something that is adverse to our national and economic security. imagine that there's a hostage deal to be had, as i believe there is. and you can't have another country call the secretary of state because the secretary of state doesn't exist. imagine if there are tensions between two countries that affect our national interests, you don't have a secretary of state to call as counterpart in those countries to seek to ease the tension, to remove the threat. imagine if president biden needs to have a secretary of state

engage in the world in some part of the world to stop a conflict, to open an opportunity, to prevent an unintended consequence. we don't have that person, and we cannot expect the president to pick up the phone in each and every substance in the world as -- in each an every sin substance in the world as he's trying to deal with covid at home. that's what at secretary of state does. so mr. blinken also finally is not just critical to addressing challenges abroad. we have to acknowledge what the role of the secretary of state is here at home. if we remember what just happened back on the 6th, three of the first four officials in the line of succession, the vice president, the speaker of the house, and the president pro tem of the senate were in the capitol when domestic terrorists breached the building. and every day we learn more details about this heinous attack, including that the

terrorists, some of who were chanting hang mike pence, came within a minute or so with a potential face-to-face encounter with vice president pence. thank god for the quick thinking and heroics of our capitol police. if something had happened, it is the secretary of state that is fourth in in line of successiono the president of the united states. leaving the office vacant is irresponsible. it is irresponsible in that regard. it is irresponsible in terms of something happening in the world and not having a secretary of state who could work to deal with it so that we could preserve our national security, promote our national interests, and stop something, an unintended consequence from happening. mr. blinken has the qualifications. the challenges facing our country call for him to be confirmed, and i hope the senate does not leave here tomorrow

until he is confirmed. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senior senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent i be recognized for such time as i shall consume. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. inhofe: let me just say to my good friend from new jersey, wholeheartedly, i agree with him. i've known tony blanken for a long -- tony blinken for a long period of time. i have worked with him in different venues. i talked to him today at some length. we are together on many issues that i think are significant. one issue out there is the one that we have been talking about on western sahara. he understands that. he understands the issue. and so i join my friend from new jersey in encouraging a fast and quick confirmation. we recently said goodbye to a lot of really good hardworking

men and women from the previous administration. i want to highlight a few. what we refer to, some of my friends and some of my enemies refer to 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, it's really a great bunch of people. i want to start with andrew wheeler. andrew wheeler was with me for a number of years, 14 years, before he came in as the director of the e.p.a. here's a guy, he is nominated administrator. at that time, i said there is no one in america who is as qualified as andrew wheeler in his job. he is a guy, the first job he had out of law school was with the e.p.a. when he was nominated as administrator, 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's worked for me in the senate

as well as becoming one of my has been's as refer to people that used to work with me and are still my good friends. andy started in my personal office as chief counsel, went on to serve as staff director and chief counsel during my time as chairman of the environment and public works committee. he has decades of experience and is one of the most skilled energy and environmental policy experts i've ever come in contact with. i am just immensely proud of what he was able to accomplish throughout his career, but particularly as e.p.a. administrator, and he understood that the e.p.a.'s mission is to implement the laws that are passed by congress for the american people. the e.p.a. is not just to legislate. a lot of people think that's what they do. that's our job to legislate. he carries it out. he did really just a great job with that. and contrary to what many on the left say the republicans want,

we do want clean air, we want clean water, we want clean land, and andy proved that he can accomplish that without burdensome overregulations. during his time at the e.p.a., he spearheaded a number of the rules and deregulatory actions that have brought important relief to the american job creators, all the while protecting our environment. he rode back the economy standards on cars created to try to force americans to drive vehicles they don't want to drive and that they can't afford and its replacement. andy developed the safe vehicles rule which expands consumer choice and lowers the price of vehicles. andy also repealed and replaced the waters of the u.s. or the wotus. the wotus thing, if you talk to any of the agricultural groups -- i am talking about the farm bureau and other agricultural groups -- they will say that's the rule that we

really had to do something about. states like mine, we don't need washington bureaucrats imposing their radical regulations like wotus on people that know the waters better than they do. it's not an overstatement when i say this is probably the greatest regulatory burden facing oklahoma farmers, ranchers, and landowners during that obama administration. i was proud to see wotus repealed by the navigable waters protection rule which provided clean and lawful definition of waters in the united states and doesn't try to overregulate the arid parts of the state. oklahoma is an arid state. you go out in the western part of oklahoma, in the panhandle of oklahoma, and it's really arid. i did just see if you just take that regulation out of the hands of the states and give it to the federal government, there is always a concern by our farmers and ranchers in oklahoma and across the nation that they would turn these arid areas into

wetlands. another regulatory overhaul accomplished by andy was for the affordable clean energy or the a.c.e. rule that replaced the illegal clean power plan which regulated emissions of coal-fired power plants. i had long been critical of the clean power plan and lid the charge against it in the senate. like most of the -- of that era of the rules, it was a federal power grab, and it would have sent americans' electricity bills soaring, and we all knew that, but we made it history. when we repealed and replaced the clean power plan with the a.c.e. rule, it was good. not only would this rule help americans' electricity costs be affordable, it's expected to benefit the environment as well. just last month, the e.p.a. finalized another big rule that

requires e.p.a. to prepare a cost-benefit analysis before coming up with new regulations. now, how is that all unreasonable? americans shake their heads and they wonder why we would pass things that don't have any kind of a cost-benefit analysis. what's it going to cost? what kind of sacrifice are we going to have to make? we put that into effect, and it's something that i think people are very claifl for. throughout his tenure, andy has been focused on what is in the best interests of taxpayers, not just the washington bureaucrats. that's clear with this rule and countless others. you know, one of the good things about andy is i already mentioned that he knows more about that process than anybody else does, more about the e.p.a. he has always been a star. he started at the bottom. when he was first put into that

office and was confirmed as e.p.a. director, he gave a speech over the e.p.a. he didn't know i was there. i went over there to hear it. he had 300 of the people with the e.p.a. all listening to him and looking at him and saying there's room at the top for me. here's a guy that started at the very bottom and did it up as director of the e.p.a. it didn't go unnoticed. everyone realized that. so anyway, i'd like to submit for the record at this time -- there is an article here. an e. & e. news article from july of 2018 which details a number of former staff people and their background. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: thank you, madam chair. at the top of the list was my chief of staff ryan jackson. like andy, ryan also went on to be my staff director at the e.p.a. committee -- e.p.w.

committee, environment and public works, where he helped negotiate bipartisan bills from highway and water infrastructure to environment bills like tasca. you remember, that was the one that had the chemicals regulations. in his role, he helped me negotiate with former california senator barbara boxer. this is kind of interesting because i think the chair would find this to be interesting because barbara boxer and i, every -- for many, many years, every time republicans were a majority, i was the chairman of that committee and she was the -- the director. every time the democrats were in control, she was the chairman and i was the ranking member. so we worked together. we accomplished more -- i won't divulge where the meeting is but there is a meeting that republicans have historically had at 12:15 on a tuesday with all the members of the committee, the chairman, and we talk about what we have done. when it was my turn, i would say

now from the committee that actually gets things done. well, that was barbara boxer and me. no two people could be further apart philosophically than barbara boxer and me, yet we were able to do that with the help of ryan jackson. he -- i actually hired him when he was still in college. he left my office in early 2017 to go to work as chief of staff of the e.p.a. where he was the central player in the implementation of the last administration's policies. in february, he left the e.p.a., which is when mandy gutestruck took office as chief of staff. mandy worked with me in the e.p.w. committee for several years as majority counsel. in that role, she helped me craft policy priorities. while at the e.p.a., she has been instrumental in advancing priorities like the a.c.e. rule that i mentioned earlier. she is a skilled and devoted public servant, and i'm proud of all that she has done to take --

to advance policies that benefit all americans. a number of other of what i refer to as my has beens has served the e.p.a. for the last four years. susan bonine. she was she chief counsel of the e.p.w. went on to served as chief medicare of the office of enforcement compliance. britany bowland was counsel for the e.p.w. and environment and public works committee. went on to serve as associate administrator for the office of policy. byron brown was senior counsel at the e.p.w. and went on to serve as deputy chief of staff of policy. then there was daisy mcender. she was communications director in my office. went on to serve as the senior advisor in the office of policy. so i'm proud of all of my has beens and the big impact that they have had on our country, and we're grateful for their service in the past and present, especially those of andrew

wheeler and ryan jackson. to say to our friends wheeler and jackson, thank you, and good luck in your nexen defers. you did great work. and let me just mention one last thing. i urge the biden administration not to repeal a lot of the rules and regulations and deregulations initiatives that gave us the economy that was unprecedented at the time but for the -- before the pandemic set in. it would be devastating to our country, which is already trying to recover from that pandemic. and now is not the time to impose costly new regulations on american -- americans and the job creators in this country. everyone knows this pandemic wreaked havoc on our economy. i'm certain that had we not had the virus, we would have broken even more economic records than we already had. we actually -- prior to the pandemic, we had the best economy of our life.

we set records, small business optimism reaching the highest level on record in its 45-year history. the unemployment being -- hitting a 50-year low, 3.5%. we have always said in the past that full employment is 4%. we brought it down in that entire year in february of 2020 down to 3.5%. it never happened before. median household income rose to a record high in 2019, the highest since 1967. the wealth of america's families rose. that's an indicator. rose to their highest level in history. so these good things were happening. and i -- i would urge this administration not to repeal some of these regulations. repealing some of these regulations would simply reverse gains like these, and i urge the biden administration to work with me and to others to reach compromises on regulations that

benefit all americans. that seems to be pretty reasonable, and i think that is a good program to do. let's give it a try. okay? with that, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

he quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president. i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that upon the conclusion of morning business on friday, january 22, the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination -- calendar number 1, the nomination of lloyd austin to be the secretary of defense. further, that there be ten minutes for debate on the nomination, equally divided in the usual form. that upon the use or yielding back of time, the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination, and that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. schumer: madam president. i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. friday, january 22. further, that the following -- that following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. finally, that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session as provided under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, for the information of senators, there will be a roll call vote on the confirmation of the austin nomination to be secretary of defense at approximately 10:30 tomorrow. we also hope to vote on confirmation of yellin and blinken nominations further this week. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the

senate stands adj