mr. whitehouse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, one of rhode island's contributions to the cultural life of our nation came from two brothers who grew up in cumberland, rhode island. they did two movies, one was called "dumb and dumber." this is a good example of dumb and dumber. it was dumb when president obama opened the south atlantic coast to the prospect of oil drilling. when he did, the reaction was immediate and profound from norfolk, virginia, all the way down the red south atlantic coast to st. august is teen -- august isine county, they all said, get that offshore drilling out of here. we don't want it. it was a sweep of that republican shoreline. it was called the resolution revolution because so many resolutions were passed saying, get your oil drilling the heck away from our coasts. ultimately, the obama administration got smart and in the final approval, there was no drilling in the atlantic, no drilling in the pacific. the

mr. whitehouse: mr. president, before i make my remarks, let me just say in the, you might call the current unpleasantness in washington, what a pleasant thing it is to be here on the senate floor and hear the respected chairman of the senate finance committee say the positive words that he has said, describe his success at expanding chip, and call to our memory the name of senator kennedy, who was his friend and his ally in creating that program upon which so many children across america depend. so i thank him for a lovely moment in an otherwise somewhat, shall we say challenging washington environment. mr. president. mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: in the spirit of back and forth, which is often the spirit of the senate, i am following senator hatch, but i see senator wicker also on the floor. if time is pressing on him, i'd be willing to consider yielding for a few moments. i don't know how much time he intends to consume. mr. wicker: the senator is

mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. i am here for my time to wake up speech. my last two speeches focused on the, shall we say peculiar role. two of this country's largest trade associations play on climate change. they got dozens and dozens of member companies that support action on climate change, renewable energy now provides more jobs than fossil fuels and lots, lots of american manufacturing. yet, the u.s. chamber of commerce and the national association of manufacturers spend millions and millions of dollars lobbying congress against climate action, against renewables, and in favor of the fossil fuel industry. go figure. in 2016, senator warren and i surveyed the 108 companies on the chamber of commerce's board, and we couldn't find a single one that would endorse the chamber's anticlimate lobbying. not one. many of these companies had very public proc

mr. chairman. >> senator whitehouse. >> thank you, chairman. i share senator corker's frustrations with where we are and i think you, mr. chairman, have expressed similar frustrations. we have a ridiculous budget process and as a result of that, we end up with ridiculous budgets. this budget is going no place. we all know that. it was cooked up in the laboratories of the koch brothers and a bunch of other creepy billionaires who want to remake america in ayn rand's image. it is cooked up in laboratories of polluters who want absolutely no regulations so they can spoil at will. it includes over $1 trillion in medicaid cuts that are clearly going no place. it is completely out of step with the funding bill that the president just signed and touted. it's off by $58 billion just from the non-defense discretionary part of the funding bill that the president just signed. it knocks down hhs with a 21% cut as opposed to the funding bill that we just passed which has $6 billion in opioid funding that i think americans desperately need. the funding bill w

whitehouse: mr. mnuchin, this is, i'm new to this committee, so let me start with some simple questions questions. the first is what's what your feeling is about the present level of income inequality in the united states. >> again, the president, i, my number-one focus is economic growth, and i think if we have proper economic growth that that will shrink the income inequality. the ratio of ceo to average worker pay has gone from 18 to 1 to 270 to 1 in the last 50 years. the top 1% of income earners take 24% of all income out of the economy every year according to the federal reserve. and the top 25 hedge fund managers made more in the last year we have information for, this is 2014, than all 158,000 kindergarten teachers, according to the washington post. you think we'll grow our way out of that? >> yes, i do. >> ok. do you think that the tax code should be progressive in the sense that it demands a higher contribution as a percentage of income from high income earners than low income earners? >> i

mr. chairman. >> senator whitehouse. >> well, thank you, chairman. >> you looked lonely down there the at end of the panel. >> it's a long way down here and i'm afraid secretary azar will get a crick in his neck requiring medical treatment turning so far to see me. >> [inaudible] >> i appreciate it. when we met in my office, i showed you, i think, one of my favorite charts which is this one, which shows the cbo estimates for total federal medical expenditure. and the red line along the top was the predicted total medical expenditure as of 2010. and then the affordable care act went into effect and time went on. it turned out instead of that red line, what actually happened was the green line. here in 2017, cbo did another forecast, so from this dot forward, the green line here is the newer forecast. as you know from our budget process we think in 10-year increements in the budget process. so this green area is the 10-year budget window from 2018 from 2018 to 2027. in that period we reduced anticipated federal health care costs by $3.3 trillion, according to those estimates. now, i don't know how

mr. chairman. >> senator whitehouse. >> , chairman. >> you looked lonely down there at the end of the panel. >> i know. it's a long way down here. i'm sure secretary azar will have a creek in his neck because he is to transport to see me. when we met in my office i showed you, i think, one of my favorite charts which is this one which shows the cbo estimates for total federal medical expenditure in the red line along the top was depicted total federal medical expenditure as of 2010 and then before the correct when in fact in time went on in it turned out that instead of that red line would actually happen was that remind and then here in 2017 cbo did another forecast to go from this .-dot forward, the green light here, and the newer forecast and as you know from our budget process we think in ten year increments in the budget process so this green area is this ten year budget window from 2018 through 2027 and in the. we reduced, anticipated, federal costs by $2.3 trillion. according to those estimates. now, i don't know how that happened and i got a staff but they're not like your staff and i thi

whitehouse. [laughter] >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. pruitt, welcome to the committee.et me start by asking unanimous consent to put three documents on record. one is the report entitled abandoning science device by the center of science democracy and with it internal documents from the epa to chronicle how political policies are not one the clean air scientific advisory committee. >> without objection. >> thank you. esther pruitt, you were confirmed about a year ago in february and about a year before that in february of 2016 you went on a radio talk show at a radio station called ksaq and. the show's host is a man named pat campbell. i'm not sure if your mom that. >> i appeared on that program a few times so i'm not sure the specific program you are referencing the reason i mention it is because we have a transcript of the interview that you provided and i don't know if this is what you had in mind when you said you were interested in reaching common ground but i can assure you there are a great many americans who share the concerns that you expressed in the interview

whitehouse. senator boozman. >> thank you, mr. chairman, mr. chairman, i have a letter that the arkansas department of environmental quality sent me yesterday in support of epa's recent decision to approve arkansas's revised regional hay state implementation plan. quote the letter "arkansas applauds the epa's recent improvements in regard fostering increased cooperation with the states in order to achieve environmental goals in a sensible and practical manner." i'd like unanimous consent to enter the -- >> without objection. >> thank you, mr. chairman. administrator, i was very happy to see the epa approved arkansas's revisions to the regional hay state implementation plan. many in arkansas are thrilled that we now have an epa who's willing to listen to the states, and are excited to proceed towards the goal of improving air quality. in the past we've had a situation where the epa wanted to hear input as long as the state agreed with them. if not then they got themselves in trouble. can you explain your approach to cooperative federalism, and t

fortunately, when senator sheldon whitehouse tried to do that, he fumbled it. >> you told mr.pbell, "i believe that donald trump in the white house would be more abusive to the constitution than barack obama. and that's saying a lot." do you recall saying that? >> i don't, senator. >> would you -- >> and i don't echo that today at all. >> i guess not. >> given your comments about hubris -- >> afraid i lost it. [ light laughter ] we have -- i'm having technical difficulties. >> seth: oh, my god, democrats you're not even good at being nerds. [ light laughter ] you use an iphone like dads trying to take a prom photo. "how does this thing work? oh, no, i accidentally snapchatted myself." [ laughter ] nonetheless, pruitt's evolution from trump critic to lackey very much captures the modern gop in a microcosm as trump has become more authoritarian, more unhinged, more lawless. the gop has only gotten more protective of him. just take the secret memo house republicans voted to release claiming to expose wrongdoing by the fbi in its investigation of the trump campaign. the memo is re

whitehouse. >> will be get further than i did. [laughter] >> thank you, chairman. mr. pruitt, welcome to the committee. let me start by asking unanimous consent to put three documents in the record. one is a report entitled "abandoning science advice by the center for science and democracy," and with it two internal documents from the epa that chronicle how political appointees are stacking the scientific advisory committees with industry representatives, in this case the clean air scientific advisory committee. without objection. >> thank you. mr. pruitt, you were confirmed about a year ago in february. and about a year before that in february of 2016 you went on a radio talk show at a radio station called kfaq in tulsa. the show's host is a man named pat campbell. i don't know if you remember that. >> i appeared on that program a few times. i don't know the particular program you're referencing. >> the reason i mention it is that we have a transcript of the interview that you provided and i don't know if this is what you had in mind when you said you were interested

committee -- i mean whitehouse, who has taken a lesser assignment on the finance committee, for some reason, but we will miss sheldon and his work on this committee. i'm going to, mr. chairman, withhold my comments, although what i would like to do is call on senator isakson for one minute just to make some comments, and then we'll go to senator casey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just wanted to reference the statements made by the ranking member, senator murray, whom i dr. fitzgerald. i talked with dr. fitzgerald yesterday. as chairman of the ethics committee, i have gotten her in touch with the appropriate people to deal with the issue. she is forthrightly dealing with it to the best i can determine. i'm working expeditiously to see if we can get it done as quickly as possible so she will not have any conflict to testify whatsoever. that's her desire as well. thank you. >> senator casey? >> thank you very much, senator burr, i'm grateful for this hearing. grateful to be working with you again on this reauthorization and commend your work on this for many, many years. i also want to thank chairman alexander and ranking member murray for this bipartisan hearing o

mr. whitehouse: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, it is. mr. whitehouse: in that case, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. whitmr. whitehouse: thank you, . president. i'm here for my 197th time to wake up speech. we're getting a little dog eared but we keep doggedly along. last week i spoke about corporate america outsourcing its lobbying to the u.s. chamber of commerce, a determined enemy of any action on climate change. when pro-climate companies support the chamber, they support its anticlimate lobbying and its anticlimate election spending and threatening and they enable the chamber's anticlimate stranglehold with the fossil fuel industry on congress. the chamber is not alone in its anticlimate advocacy on behalf of corporate america. another big washington trade association obstructing climate action despite having many pro climate action members, is the national association of manufacturers, often called nam, national association of manufacturers. over the last two decades, n.

mr. president, i also like to take a couple of minutes to discuss a bill i'll be introducing with senators coons, graham, and whitehouse. it's called the clarifying lawful overseas use of data act or the cloud act. it's a tremendously important bill that will help solve the problems that have arisen in recent years with cross border law enforcement requests. the rise of e-mail and cloud computing has put our privacy laws on a collision course with privacy laws of other countries. information in e-mails or in the cloud can be stored on servers virtually anywhere in the world. this means that when law enforcement seeks access to such information, the information may be located in another country. this state of affairs causes problems both for law enforcement and for e-mail in cloud computing providers. it causes problems for law enforcement because warrants traditionally stop at the water's edge and because laws in other countries may prohibit disclosures to foreign law enforcement. and if causes problems for e-mail -- it causes problems for e-mail and cloud providers because they find themselves you caught between order