and i'm going to turn the mic over to my colleague, john millett. ..president obama has directed the epa to issue a proposal by june of 2014 and take final action by june of 2015. greenhouse gases including carbon pollution, our air pollutants that are subject to regulation under the clean air act. epa has the authority to address that under section 111 of the law. section one e. levin said south separate approaches for investing new and existing sources of pollution. for new sources which are covered under section one e. levin the epa had standards of performance all so-called new source performance standards. this is the proposal that was signed on september 20 standards available on the epa website for review. this type of standards must reflect the degree of the mission limitations achievable through the application of what is known as the best system of reduction. new source performance standards can address the six common pollutants known as criteria pollutants but they cannot address the air toxins. for existing sources covered under section one

president obama is being treated differently than president bush was, patricia millett is being treated different than johnoberts was. it is not fair. it's not extraordinary circumstance. there's no justification for it. >> forget the 2005 deal. forget extraordinary circumstances. better luck next time. you're an obama nominee. in fact, so far in this administration, 32 of his nominees have needed cloiture petitions to end filibusters over nominations. that number in the entire bush presidency just 18. there's that old saying justice delayed is justice denied and couldn't be more true right now in the judicial system. might be a political game to republicans in washington but access to the courts matters to americans of all political persuasions across the country and we saw that firsthand this week. joining is professor spencer overton and drew courtney. thanks to you both. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you. >> spencer, i want to start with you and talking about the decisions this week and the vacancies. i know that you've worked on the confirmation process and you know how hard it can be to get these

millett to the d.c. court of appeals. they're holding it up on the charge that the president is packing the court. when he's simply filling vacancies. in other words, doing his job. here's johnornyn using this tortured logic on a radio show earlier this week. >> i think we're going to be successful in stopping this court packing experiment and the country will be better for it. i think they ought to let their senators know that courts should not be partisan play things for any administration and ask president obama and the democratic majority leader to stop their court-packing effort. >> ron, john cornyn is an example of the tail wagging the dog. normal circumstances he would be a normal conservative. not a bad guy. normal person trying to do his job in washington leading his party to as many victories as they can get. all well and good. yet he begins to act more like that character sitting with him down there from texas. he begins to imitate like they all do. they all start talking like mike lee and rand paul because they're scared to death one of these will look over and see them and won't have averted their glance. they're afraid of getting any attention, these people. an

but when patricia millett was nominated to that exact same seat by president obama, a woman with just as good qualifications as john roberts -- and they both have great qualifications -- she was filibustered. some say we shouldn't call that a double standard. well, i'm not sure what else one might call it. madam president, i do these not just to recite numbers, but i'm a lawyer. i've tried cases in federal courts. i've argued cases in federal courts of appeals. i consider that a privilege but i always went into those courts knowing i could look at that federal judge and say, it doesn't make any difference whether i'm a democrat or a republican, whether i represent the plaintiff or the defendant. this is an impartial court. but if we play political games with that federal judiciary, how long are the american people going to trust the impartiality of our federal courts? at what point do thee games thes start making people think maybe this is not an independent judiciary? if that day comes, madam president, the united states has given up one of its greatest strengths. let's go back to voting on judges based on their m

john roberts for the ninth seat to the d.c. circuit, he was confirmed with every single republican and democrat voting for him. when patricia millett was nominated with exactly the same credentials as he was for the ninth seat, she was filibustered by the republicans. are they treated differently? yeah. that happened last week so it's fresh in my memory. but i would talk about a different issue today. senators are finally going to have a chance to cast their vote to put on the record what every senator understands is a fundamental issue of fairness. the employment nondiscrimination act will help bring this great nation one step closer to equal rights for all americans. i've long believed that american workers should be evaluated based on how they perform, not on irrelevant considerations such as gender or race or gender identity or sexual orientation. how do they do the job? if they do the job, they have to be praised for it. in these difficult economic times, ensuring equal protection in the workplace is even more quilt. we have to do better. we don't question -- we shouldn't question, anyway, the people who should be treated the