mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, back in august, several western states and indian tribes suffered an enormous environmental disaster. it's been called the gold king mine spill. in this disaster, the environmental protection agency spilled three million gallons of toxic waste water into a tributary of the animas river in colorado. this plume of toxic waste threatened people in colorado, new mexico and utah. it stretched to the land of the navajo nation and the southern ute indian tribes. last month, i chaired a hearing of the indian affairs committee that looked at the spill. the e.p.a. was there to testify. the e.p.a. claimed that it was taking full responsibility and that it did everything it could to deflect actual blame. they said they're taking full responsibility. then they did everything they could to deflect actual blame. the agency administrator actually told our committee that this bill was inevitable, inevitable, she said. does that sound like someone who's actually taking full responsibility? w

mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, last friday the obama administration released the latest numbers on unemployment and on jobs. once again, the numbers were grim. experts predicted that our economy would create 200,000 new jobs in september. instead they fell woefully short, got just 140,000 so they're about 60,000 jobs short. now, that's a big miss and it's nowhere near as many jobs as american families need right now. so here's how "investors business daily" pout -- put it in a headline monday. october, 5, yesterday. "private hiring pace is worst in three years. labor force shah -- shrinks." worst in three years. wages have gone almost nowhere in six years -- they actually declined in september. and 74 straight months with wage growth below 2 1/2%. before the recession, we routinely got 3% growth month after month. president obama seems to be satisfied with this limping progress. he bragged over the weekend about how many jobs have been created while he's been president. is missing expectations good enoug

mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. rrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'd like associate myself with the remarks of the majority leader and point out that in today's "new york times," wednesday, october 21, figure headline, "insurance out of reach for many despite law." despite this law, insure insuras out of reach for many. and i know that my colleagues who are back home visiting with people around their home states last week, listening to what was on constituents' minds, heard exactly this, the problems of the health care law. i was home in wyoming, heard from a lot of people, very concerned about president obama's collapsing health care law. and that's what this law is doing. it is collapsing. people in wyoming just learned that one insurance company, wen health, will no longer be selling insurance through the obamacare exchanges in our state. the company said it had to stop selling obamacare plans because there was just no way to make money without big taxpayer subsidies coming from washington. now, mr

mr. chairman -- >> thank you, senator barrasso. senator -- >> i apologize, mr. chairman. i just wanted to let you know that i did get the information you were seeking on the clean power plan and when the rule was submitted. so i can provide that. >> the september 4th deadline? is that what you're talking about? >> it was sent to the register on september 4th. and we still expect it to be published in october. i just wanted to let you know that. >> submitted on september 4th. thank you very much. >> thank you for being here. just a quick question on the contractor issue. >> yeah. >> it's been mentioned that epa had contracted. >> yes. >> private contractor to do the work. does the private contractor have a liability issue here or is that something they release on when they contract with epa? >> well, the contractor has to follow the work plan and the task order that they have been given. it is a contractor that has been working with the agency for a number of years, and has worked on 15 mine sites before. but they were working under the direction of our onscene coordinator

mr. stern. >> senator udall. >> thank you chairman barrasso. one of the things that i think, mr. stern, that i'm really impressed with that you've done is gone and tried to learn from kyoto. you have tried to take in account what republicans and democrats said as a result of kyoto and one of the big concerns for many republicans has been that there should not be an international agreement that imposes climate action on the united states beyond what the u.s. already plans. beyond what we have in law. do you expect the paris agreement will obligate the united states to meet an emissions target that goes beyond what the united states has already pledged? >> no i don't, senator. >> and another big ask is that enforcement should not be left up to the united nations. do you expect the paris agreement will include compliance penalties, sanctions or other external enforcement on the united states? and i think the key word there is other external enforcement on the united states. >> that's not part of the discussion, no. >> purchases have long decried any international agreements on clima

mr. stern. >> senator udall. >> thank you chairman barrasso. one of the things i think, mr. stern, that i'm really impressed with what you've done is gone and tried to learn from kyoto. you have tried to take in account what republicans and democrats said as a result of kyoto and one of the big concerns for many republicans has been that there should not be an international agreement that imposes climate action on the united states beyond what the u.s. already plans. beyond what we have in law. do you expect the paris agreement will obligate the united states to meet an emissions target that goes beyond what the united states has already pledged? >> no, i don't, senator. >> and another big ask from republicans is enforcement should not be left up to the united nations, that black helicopters shouldn't pounce on the united states if commitments are not met. do you expect the paris agreement will include compliance penalties, sanctions or other external enforcement on the united states? and i think the key word there is other external enforcement on the united states. >> that'

barrasso. stan thank you mr. chairman and madam secretary want to thank you for your incredible commitment to this country as first lady and a member of this body as secretary of state and i have seen you work yourself to exhaustion. not to your own benefit but to the benefit of this country in and the country is grateful for that. i agree we need to make sure that something like this never happens again and i've looked at it like the challenger explosion where we lost the severn -- seven astronauts. we didn't see it coming that we could have seen it coming and should have seen it coming. as you said you never saw the security requests. vice president biden in the presidential debates said no one told us. .. >> >> we obviously had a strong security presence obviously there was a significant security presence and i believe that was not the case. i would estimate you believe we had a significant strong presence in libya at that time perhaps we want that for all of our ambassadors. >> senator, we had a security pres

barrasso. stan thank you mr. chairman and madam secretary want to thank you for your incredible commitment to this country as first lady and a member of this body as secretary of state and i have seen you work yourself to exhaustion. not to your own benefit but to the benefit of this country in and the country is grateful for that. i agree we need to make sure that something like this never happens again and i've looked at it like the challenger explosion where we lost the severn -- seven astronauts. we didn't see it coming that we could have seen it coming and should have seen it coming. as you said you never saw the security requests. vice president biden in the presidential debates said no one told us. .. >> >> we obviously had a strong security presence obviously there was a significant security presence and i believe that was not the case. i would estimate you believe we had a significant strong presence in libya at that time perhaps we want that for all of our ambassadors. >> senator, we had a security pres