Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise today to discuss my opposition to the nomination of Michael Regan for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Now, before I begin, let me be very clear. I really liked meeting and getting to know Michael Regan. He is a dedicated public servant and an honest man. He had a beautiful family with him, and he answered the questions as straightforwardly as I think he thought he could. I have enjoyed getting to know him through my role as the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and I appreciated the willingness he expressed to visit my home State of West Virginia. But this vote is not based on what Mr. Regan might do if he had his say; this vote is about confirming someone to execute President Biden's agenda, which Mr. Regan said he would faithfully do, and I cannot support that agenda. I cannot support that agenda that Secretary--if confirmed--Regan would be tasked with implementing.

Throughout his confirmation process, Secretary Regan did not commit to a different policy agenda than that of the Obama administration--an agenda that absolutely devastated my State and other energy-producing States.

In his nomination hearing, Secretary Regan, because he is secretary of North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality, would not comment as to whether the so-called Clean Power Plan or something worse would be reinstituted. He did not rule out a return to the WOTUS rule. He could not say whether the EPA would again claim overarching authority to force States to shift their electricity generation sources. He could not commit to real changes, and that is because the agenda is already set. Climate czar Gina McCarthy and others have already set the table.

InsideEPA recently reported:

Administration observers are questioning whether Michael Regan . . . could face a diminished role if he wins Senate confirmation due to the large number of Obama-era officials who have returned to the agency and the White House to work on implementing Biden's environmental agenda.

The article went on to say:

[T]hese sources also say that because there are so many officials now working on climate change policies across the Biden administration, this could lead to ``turf wars'' between EPA and the White House on this issue.

Well, I share those concerns.

For almost 2 months now, unaccountable czar Gina McCarthy has been working both behind the scenes and in front of the press to lay the groundwork for the Biden administration's agenda. She is wielding her power publicly to make it clear who is calling the shots and directing the troops.

McCarthy herself said recently:

I've got a small stronghold office, but I am an orchestra leader for a very large band.

She is operating this ``stronghold'' office with no transparency outside of the Senate confirmation process. It would be bad enough with just a turf war between an equally matched White House and EPA, but we know that McCarthy is poised to have influence within the EPA too.

In addition to the Obama EPA alums already in place, the nomination of Janet McCabe to serve as EPA Deputy Administrator has only increased my concern and made it worse.

In 2019, McCabe, McCarthy, and another alum of the Obama EPA wrote an op-ed fully backing the overreaching Clean Power Plan. They admitted that their Clean Power Plan was a War on Coal. They stated:

The best way to cut emissions is to shift electricity generation from the dirtiest plants, which happen to use coal.

So they were willing to say it outright once they were out of public office. They are willing to admit to their War on Coal. It upsets me because they wouldn't say it to the people of my State when they were in the office. They didn't have the courage to look the people in West Virginia--they didn't even come to our State to talk about it--to look them in the eye and admit they wanted to wipe coal off the map. Had they come, they would have had to hear in person, eye to eye, the harm, the devastation that workers in our coal industry and many other associated industries in West Virginia were facing.

WVU economist John Deskins put that harm into perspective in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at a hearing in 2015. He observed:

In Central Appalachia, coal production has fallen by 51 percent since 2010, compared to a decline of 10 percent from the nation's other coal-producing regions. . . . [N]early all of the coal job losses that have occurred in West Virginia have come from our state's southern coalfields. The concentration of these job losses has created a Great Depression--

Great Depression-- in six southern counties--Boone, Clay, Logan, McDowell, Mingo, and Wyoming [Counties]. Job losses over the past four years range between--

Remember, this is in 2015-- 25 and 33 percent in each of these counties.

That is how many jobs were lost.

John Kerry stood alongside Gina McCarthy in the Oval Office in January and talked about how workers in the fossil fuel industry can just become wind turbine technicians or solar panel technicians. John Kerry doesn't really know what it actually means to be any type of these workers.

Brad Markell, a representative from the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, explained some of the differences to the Washington Post. He said:

You get guys that are coming off of fossil jobs in the Dakotas or the wind belt, and are making, you know, eighty, ninety, a hundred thousand a year. [To put wind turbines up], they're looking at thirty to thirty-five thousand, with either no or substandard benefits.

In President Biden's White House, we have unaccountable--and either misguided at best or uninformed at worst--czars trying to do what they think is best for this country.

So let's go back to Secretary Regan. In his hearing, he talked in depth about his work with Republicans in North Carolina and his commitment to transparency, and both of the Republican Senators from his home State came and introduced him to our committee and spoke very well of his ability to work across the aisle.

I appreciate that greatly, and I welcome that, but the fact remains that I can't support Secretary Regan when Gina McCarthy is the self- described orchestra leader for the Biden administration and Kerry is basing so-called ``transition'' policies on a fantasy world that does not exist.

I am very skeptical that the next 4 years will be any better than the 8 years of economic devastation brought on by President Obama's EPA. So, without commitments to different policies than what were pursued in the Obama EPA, I cannot support Secretary Regan today. But, you know what? I hope he proves me wrong. I hope he makes good on his promise to work with Republicans to help address climate issues.

As ranking member of the EPA Committee, I stand ready to just do that. We have so much common ground on climate issues. I hope Secretary Regan can cut Gina McCarthy out of power and let her know who is calling the shots for environmental policy in the Biden administration. I hope Secretary Regan embraces President Biden's mandate of unity and works with both red and blue States to take care of our planet. Until then, I will continue to look out for my State and practice aggressive oversight on what I think may be coming.

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