mr. balash has shown his talent and passion for affordable sources of energy and environmental protection. the alaska department of natural resources manages one of the largest portfolios of land, water, oil, gas, renewables, timber, and minerals in the world. mr. balash's leadership of the department required collaboration with many diverse stakeholders and a dedication to the protection of alaska's natural beauty. he worked closely with the interior department as the commissioner and he has the skills necessary to fulfill his leadership role at the department. as the assistant secretary, mr. balash will be responsible for many of the interior department's critical functions, including the management of all federal lands and waters, the management of their associated resources, and the appropriate regulation of surface coal mining. i look forward to working with mr. balash on many of these issues, especially those important to the coal miners in my home state of kentucky. i would urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this nomination. now, on another matter, yesterday the senate for

mr. balash. so my point is if senators want to vote down or oppose a nominee, they should make their opposition known and transparent. so we're going to have a vote here in a couple of minutes. after the vote, mr. president, i'm going to come back to the floor, and i could do it right now, but i could be -- i will be respectful to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. i will come back down and unanimous consent to move joe balash forward. we've been waiting months. i'm really hopeful that my colleagues -- maybe they don't want to show who the secret holder is -- but i'm hopeful that my colleagues will come down and not object. i'm going to try to free joe balash, essentially. i'm hopeful that we can agree on that and move this very well-qualified candidate forward, but maybe there'sing going to be an objection. we'll see. i'll ask about this in about a half-hour. if there's an objection, i hop that the secret holder will come down to the senate floor, speak to the american people, and say

the senate proceed to executive session to consider the balash nomination as under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that the senate stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate is adjourned until

the senate proceed to executive session to consider the balash nomination as under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that the senate stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate is adjourned until differences are crippled can leaders have said they hope to have a final bill to the president by christmas. the senate is back tomorrow morning and here our floor speeches about the tax reform bill and daca. >> mr. presidentnt. >> the senator from maryland. >> i take the time to talk about pending business. tax proposal going into a conference committee between the house and senate as i'm sure the american people now know that 2:00 a.m. in the morningno on early saturday morning the senate passed its version of tax reformef. of the house had already done that and we are working on a house bill. the motion before us is to take that bill and send it to a conference. we would be better off sending it back to committee so that we could have public hearings and understand what we are voting on rather then

mr. balash. mr. balash may become the interior department's judge that he initiated at the commission of natural resources so this is my main concern. i asked mr. balash his plans to recuse himself from participating in the department's consideration of alaska's claim. i believe that mr. balash thinks that he will comply with whatever the inspector general says the rules are, which is basically one year of recusal of being involved in that situation. that said, mr. balash, even under these current rules, could be in the position of being the final arbiter on a case he previously brought on expanding alaska's claim to the arctic wildlife refuge. he alone could make the decision. he alone could series the decision that he came and made claim to the bureau of land management, a claim that was turned down, he could reverse that. so for that reason i am not supporting mr. balash's nomination to this position today. there are so many things that we have right now that are an unrelenting assault on our publi