The presiding officer the senator from rhode island. Mr. Whitehouse mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that any pending quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Whitehouse thank you, mr. President. Its nice to see the distinguished senator in the chair presiding. Im not sure in my 183 time to wake up speeches ive had yet had the pleasure of speaking while the presiding officer was presiding. I am here to wake up to the corporate capture of congress and this administration, the capture of governance by the fossil fuel industry that keeps us from honestly addressing Climate Change. There is a saying that personnel is policy personnel is policies. Well, well, the trump personnel for positions at the Environmental Protection agency reflect a policy to undo the Public Welfare mission of the agency and align it with the special interests of the fossil fuel industry. There is a word for that. It is called corruption, at least as the Founding Fathers knew the meaning of that term. It starts at the top. Trump named scott pruitt head of the e. P. A. Pruitt has a long record of dark money fundraising and long, cozy relationships with Big Energy Industry political donors. In effect, he is a tentacle of the fossil fuel climate denial operation wiggling and rigling in the administrators chair near his new 25,000 code of silence secret Communications Booth that he built so no one would hear him checking in with his masters. Results are as expected. The New York Times has reported how rollbacks at Scott Pruitts e. P. A. Are a boon to oil and gas. No surprise. In the four months that followed his appointment, pruitt moved to undo, delay, or otherwise block nearly 30 environmental rules benefiting his fossil fuel friends. This regulatory rollback, larger in scope than any over so short of time in the agencys nearly halfcentury history went straight into the pockets of the fossil fuel industry. Longtime pruitt benefactor is cashing in on its investment in Scott Pruitts career as he is looking to eliminate rules on the leaking and flaring of methane and rescinded requirements for reporting methane emissions. Devon, as you may recall, is that Company Whose letter to the e. P. A. Pruitt put on his own Oklahoma Attorney general letterhead to mask devons hand and submit their work as his own official work as attorney general of his state. So this hand in glove relationship between devon as the hand and pruitt as the glove goes back a long way. The e. P. A. Has career scientists and legal experts who bring decades of experience in environmental law and science to the e. P. A. Who are all being cut out as the administrator takes drastic steps to undo Environmental Protections. Just this week e. P. A. Scientists were yanked from a conference in rhode island where they were going to talk about Climate Change. The matter of Climate Change and on narragansett bay in rhode island is pretty significant. This is the Providence Journal headlines, will Climate Change negate bay cleanup . With a big map of narragansett bay and the areas that are at threat of being flooded. The e. P. A. Yanked out its scientists. They werent allowed to come down and talk at an event where they were going to talk about Climate Change. And its not just yanking the scientists. Heres a New York Times article by Lisa Friedman from october 20. Headline pea scrubs a e. P. A. Scrubs a climate headline an e. P. A. Website has been scrubbed from scores of links. 15 words of Climate Change have been removed from the main page alone. Its not just at e. P. A. Heres todays exclusive, quote, headline. The interior department scrubs Climate Change from its strategic plan. I mean, they act as if this is the soviet union and the government is allowed to tell scientists what they can say and not say and to put phony propaganda on to official websites and to keep scientists from going to meetings because they might actually tell the truth about Climate Change. Mr. President , i am the son and grandson of Foreign Service officers. I grew up serving in countries that did that where the government could tell the scientists no, no, you dont say that, no, you dont go there. No, this is the party line. I never thought that would happen in the United States of america and here we are. To aid pruitt in his fossil fuel industry crusade our president has nominated a parade of fossil fuel whackies, lobbyists and operatives whose it is not just the fossil fuel industry that gets their hacks planted in government offices. You remember in the cat in the hat they had thing one and thing two running around. Well, lets look at hack and one hack two who just cleared Committee Food today in the pruitt e. P. A. For sale roster. Hack one is a toxicologist who consults for major chemical corporations and has spent the better part of his professional life fighting regulation of potentially toxic compounds in consumer goods. His name is michael dosserren. President trump elected him to run chemical safety and chemical prevention. It is a seller of pesticides and funning sides fungicides called him the perfect fit for that job, the perfect industry hack, more likely, for that job. Hack two is william wareem, to run the office of e. P. A. Radiation. It is the host of the rubber manufacturers association, the american paper and Forest Association and the American Petroleum institute. President george w. Bush actually nominated this guy to the same post in 2006. But the white house withdrew his nomination because it was so controversial. Well, that was 2006. That was before citizens united. That was before that decision am amped up industry power to the point where it can now ram through conflicted and general candidates with as happened this morning unanimous republican support. Not one republican senator on the committee would voice an objection. When senators asked questions for the record in the environment and Public Works Committee nomination hearing on wearum and dorsum these captured nominees played dumb about the sensitive programs they will oversee if confirmed. I asked dorsum if he agreed that the Tobacco Industry manipulated and obfuscated Scientific Research into the dangers of smoking for decades. End quote. Dorsan, who conducted scientific studies designed, reviewed and paid for by the Tobacco Industry and whose name is all over in hundreds of places, the Discovery Records of the Tobacco Industrys denial operation replied, i do not have firsthand knowledge to comment. I do not have firsthand knowledge to comment. The president s selection to run the office that protects americans from dangerous chemicals doesnt know the Tobacco Industrys history of falsifying science . Please, he worked for them. He was part of it. Remember by the way, that the Tobacco Industry was taken to court by the United States department of justice back when the department of justice would take an industry to court. And the department of justice won a judgment declaring that tobacco had endangered in a fraud had engaged in a fraud conspiracy, a fraud con spinach is i fraud conspiracy to deny tobaccos harms. Dorsan sees no evil. He knows nothing. I asked him whether he believes that hydro fluorocarbons are Greenhouse Gases and about the Global Warming potential of methane. His response i am not sufficiently familiar with the definition of Greenhouse Gases and do not have the expertise to answer these questions. Not familiar with the definition of Greenhouse Gases . This is Basic High School science. Every one of us has a Home State University that teaches this stuff. This has been science for more than 100 years. On to hack two, bill wearum about Carbon Dioxides role and the observable defense of Climate Change he replied the degree to which they are contributing to Climate Change has not been conclusively determined. This claim just doesnt match the scientific record, mr. President. The e. P. A. , the very agency to which mr. Wearum is nominated, along with noaa states that, and i quote, Carbon Dioxide is the primary Greenhouse Gas that is contributing to recent Climate Change. Close quote. This consensus is held by published climate scientists, by scientific agencies and societies, by all of our national laboratories, and by universities in america and around the globe. As i said, every one of us in this room, every senator i expect havent found an exception yet, and ive looked has a Home State University that doesnt just know this to be true, but it teaches it in its curriculum. But hack two sees no evil. He knows nothing. Wearums disregard for wellestablished science provides a grim preview of what we can expect from him if confirmed. His predictable dodging falls in lock step with administrator pruitt who has stated he does not agree that Carbon Dioxide is a primary contributor to the Global Warming that we see. That puts him in a very small circle of people, i think, every one of whom is connected by money to the fossil fuel industry. I asked mr. Wearum what he believes is a healthy standard for ozone. Now bear in mind that one of the goals of the Clean Air Act is to set National Ambient air quality standards for ozone. That the office to which hes nominated oversees this ozone standard, and that the e. P. A. Has had ozone standards in place since 1971, more than 45 years. In response to my question, wearum answered, im not familiar with the current science on the Health Effects of ozone, so i cannot comment on your question as to the appropriate level of the standard. Really . I asked wearum whether he agreed with e. P. A. s 2009 finding that the current and projected concentrations of Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere threaten the Public Health and welfare of current and future generations. Would he commit, i asked, not to narrow or weaken the e. P. A. s endangerment finding . Wearum wrote back that he had not read the endangerment finding or the record prepared in support of the finding. Therefore, he said, i currently do not have a view. I currently do not have a view. Thats funny. I bet he had a view when he was being paid by the rubber manufacturers association, the american forest and paper association, and the American Petroleum institute. But i guess it was the miraculous evaporating view. Maybe these see no evil nominees, dorsum and wearum dont know the basics of the problems they would confront. Maybe they just dont know. But lets not be fooled here. Polluters have paid these nominees well for their services over years. They were expert enough to be hired by Industry Groups as lobbyists and consultants. We know where their allegiances lie. We know whos been paying them. We know who they will serve. And preview of coming attractions, coming up before the e. P. A. Committee soon is andrew wheeler, trumps nominee for the e. P. A. s second in command. Wheeler was a top lobbyist for the coal mining behemoth Murray Energy. Not only did this Company SupportTrumps Campaign and provide 300,000 to help pay for his inauguration, Murray Energy has contributed to pruitt Political Action committees to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I cant wait to hear his answers on the role of coal in Climate Change, childhood asthma and mercury poisoning. The sad part of all of this is that the interests, the polluting interests who own these nominees also throw their weight around in congress. So good luck getting an honest look at this mess through congressional oversight. Over and over appalling nominees get through confirmation with no republican dissent. More see no evil. Its just wrong. For now the American Public will pay the price of dismantling these regulatory safeguards. Theyll pay the price in poisonings and carcinogenic exposures, in rising seas and raging wildfires, in childhood asthma, and northbound tropical diseases. But mark my words, one day there will be a reckoning for all of this. When captured e. P. A. Officials put payback to their donors first and clean air and Public Health a way distant second, it stinks. It is crooked by any reasonable definition of the term. It is corrupt in exactly the way the Founding Fathers understood corruption. The fossil fuel industry will one day be held to account for this binge of corruption and manipulation. Exxonmobil, koch industries, arch coal, murray coal, peabody coal, you own this just as much as the Republican Party does. I yield the floor. Mr. Gardner mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from colorado. Mr. Gardner thank you, mr. President. I come to the floor this afternoon to talk about the Health Care Tax relief act, legislation that i have introduced to delay the Health Insurance tax that was created by the Affordable Care act. This tax often referred to as the hit or h. I. T. Tax, the h. I. T. Tax imposes fees on Health Insurance coverage to consumers. Its a Pretty SimpleBusiness Concept that this h. I. T. Tax results in, that if a fee increases on an insurance policy, if a fee goes up, there is a fee charge to the company that issues this insurance policy, then that fee gets passed on to the consumer. Its the consumer then that pays the fee in the form of higher Health Insurance costs. As is the case with most excise taxes, whether its an excise tax on food or beverage or any other item, personal good, if this tax takes effect, this Health Insurance tax takes effect, costs will be passed on to consumers directly in the form of higher premiums as confirmed by the congressional budget office. This is one of the cost drivers that was built into the Affordable Care act. Health insurance tax that will directly increase the premiums of consumers insurance product. This tax was set to begin, it was supposed to begin a few years back in 2014 and it was going to start, this tax was going to start at 8 billion. And by 2018 the tax would reach 14. 3 billion. However, congress recognized that this tax was going to have a Significant Impact on the price of coverage, and as a result suspended the tax from taking effect in 2017. But without congressional action to delay or stop or prevent this Obamacare Tax from taking place again, this tax will take effect in 2018. And according to nonpartisan actuarial analysis conducted by oliver wyman, an estimated 157 million americans will be affected by this massive tax. Even more, middleincome earners across this country, 157 million americans and working americans are expected to shoulder the weight of this tax. Oliver wyman estimated that premiums will rise by 3 in each year, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Thats 3 each year. Thats 9 over three years. To put in simple perspective, in colorado alone, premiums in the individual market rose by 34 from plan year 2017 to plan year 2018, adding an additional 3 every year for those three years would leave those on the individual market paying nearly 43. 4 on average more year to year if combined with the 2018 increases at the end of that threeyear 9 increase run. Whats more, according to the department of health and human services, the average individual market premiums have increased by 105 from 2013 to 2017. Think about that. When the Affordable Care act passed, a promise wa