Volume 162, No. 165 covering the 2nd Session of the 114th Congress (2015 - 2016) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S6444 on Nov. 17, 2016.
More than half of the Agency's employees are engineers, scientists and protection specialists. The Climate Reality Project, a global climate activist organization, accused Agency leadership in the last five years of undermining its main mission.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, last week Hillary Clinton got about 1 million more votes than Donald Trump; yet here we are--Donald Trump won the Presidency. Across the Nation, everyone is wondering what happens next.
It has been barely a week, but we have already seen disgusting ideas emerging from Trump Tower: Put a White supremacist in the White House; float a plan to register all Muslim Americans; draw up plans to round up millions of human beings and rip families apart across this Nation. It is sickening, and we will fight back. But, hey, at least he promised to shake up our corrupt political system, right? I mean, after all, when President-Elect Trump announced his campaign, he called out the politicians who were ``controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests.'' When he accepted his party's nomination at the Republican National Convention, he said, ``When innocent people suffer, because our political system [ . . . ] has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash--I am not able to look the other way.'' He promised that he would ``not be controlled by the donors, special interests, and lobbyists who have corrupted our politics and politicians for far too long'' and that he would ``drain the swamp'' in Washington, DC. Those are his words, repeated loud and repeated long during the campaign.
President-Elect Trump has now named most of his transition team. So how is he doing on his rock-solid, double-down promise to get rid of the special interests and the lobbyists? Big surprise. Trump is not
``draining the swamp.'' Nope. He is inviting the biggest, ugliest swamp monsters in the front door, and he is turning them loose on our government and on our economy. In just 1 week, the President-elect has elevated a slew of Wall Street bankers, industry insiders, and special interest lobbyists to run the show on his transition team. Let's run through just a few examples.
The guy in charge of staffing the Federal Communications Commission was on Verizon's payroll and has produced studies aimed at knee-capping the net neutrality rules.
The guy in charge of picking the team that will decide energy policy in a Trump administration is a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry.
The guy picked to staff up the Department of Agriculture is a
``veteran food and agriculture lobbyist'' whose firm has raked in millions representing the food industry.
The guy leading the transition for the Environmental Protection Agency has been paid by the oil industry and denies that climate change is real.
The guy heading up the transition team for the Social Security Administration is--you guessed it--a former lobbyist who spent much of his career working to cut and privatize the Social Security system.
The guy--and, by the way, we may have noticed a pattern here: almost all guys--working on transportation and infrastructure is a founding partner at a law firm that lobbies for the National Asphalt Paving Association.
The guy in charge of economic issues for the Trump transition team served for 6 years as chief economist at Bear Stearns--the Wall Street firm that helped crash our economy in 2008, and he now runs a consulting firm for Wall Street clients.
Trump's very first decision is to hand over the keys of government to the worst kind of DC insiders and special interests. It seems like all those promises to stand up for working people were just a giant con.
As the outrage has now spread, we have heard reports that Vice President-Elect Mike Pence has decided to remove all lobbyists from the transition team. Yeah, I will believe it when I see it. If we learned anything from this campaign, it is that Team Trump will make up things if it seems convenient. Last night we already heard another version of his story. It seems that lobbyists can come on board, but only if they drop their formal lobby registration when they join the team. Swamp monsters today, swamp monsters wearing clean shirts and ties for the transition team tomorrow, and swamp monsters once the transition is over. Putting a clean shirt on a swamp monster doesn't change anything. They have already had ample opportunity to stuff transition plans with ideas that will be good for their well-connected clients, and they will be disastrous for everyone else.
Besides, even if the lobbyists finish up early and leave, the Trump transition team is still full of industry insiders seeking special deals for themselves and for their companies. This isn't subtle, and you don't have to take my word for it. Here is how Politico put it this morning: ``A populist candidate who railed against shady financial interests on the campaign trail is now putting together an administration that looks like an investment banker's dream.'' In the same article, one historian said, ``You would have to go back to the 1920s to see so much Wall Street influence coming to Washington.''
So what happened? How come the guy who spent the election tweeting
``I'm not controlled by lobbyists or special interests'' is stuffing his transition team full of lobbyists and special interests? Well, when you ask the President-elect about his flip-flop, he says he needs lobbyists on his team because ``they know the system.'' He said,
``Everybody's a lobbyist'' in DC. That is literally the opposite of what he said during the campaign, and it is also not true. Many Americans, both inside and outside Washington, have plenty of expertise to serve the American public without being bought and paid for by special interests.
Americans are angry about a Federal Government that works for the rich and powerful and that leaves everyone else in the dirt. Donald Trump knows that. He talked a good game during the campaign, and he promised to end corruption. He promised to drain the swamp. And after 1 week, we have seen what Donald Trump's promise means--nothing. His word, his promise to the American people, is worth nothing.
Well, Mr. President-Elect, let me be clear: I am ready to fight on behalf of the millions of Americans you have lied to. That includes the millions who voted for you and the millions who didn't.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
Alerts Sign-up