Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate 11012017 20171101 : compa

Vote vote vote the presiding officer have all senators voted . Any senator wishing to change their vote . On this nomination the yeas are 60. The nays are 38. The nomination is confirmed. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table. The president will be immediately notified of the senates action. The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. The clerk cloture motion. We the undersigned senators in accordance provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of allison eid. The presiding officer the question is is it the sense of the debate than the nomination of allison eid of colorado to be United States circuit judge for the tenth circuit shall be brought to a close. The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote . If not, the yeas are 56, the nays are 42. The motion is agreed to. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk the judiciary, allison h. Eid of colorado to be United States circuit judge for the tenth circuit. A senator mr. President , i have eight requests for committees to meet during today session of the senate. They have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. The presiding officer duly noted. A senator thank you, mr. President. I rise today to add my voice, my strong support, to the confirmation of Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison hed as the next judge for the tenth circuit. There is no doubt that justice eid is sue punishly qualified for that position. Mr. Gardner for the past decade she has served colorado as a justice on the Supreme Court and in 2008 she was overwhelmingly retained by the people of colorado. We have a system where every decade the voters of colorado vote to retain or dismiss a judge, and every time that has come before the people of colorado, she has been overwhelmingly retained by the people of colorado. Prior to her appointment, justice eid represented the state of colorado before the state and federal courts as our state solicitor general. She served as a tenured member of the faculty at the university of colorados law school, where she taught courses in constitutional law, legislation, torts, and has published scholarly articles on topics like constitutional federalism and tort law, in addition to being a clerk on the Supreme Court. She also practiced commercial and appellate litigation at the denver offers of the National Law Firm arnold porter. She began as a clerk to a judge on the United States court for the fifth circuit. It took her to the u. S. Supreme court under clarence thomas. She was a special assistant and speechwriter for United States secretary of Education Bill bennett. She received her law school from the university of law schoo chiw school. She received her degree in american studies from Stanford University graduating with distinction as a member of phi beta cap d. A. Pa. What phi beta kappa. What she does, she does it at the highest level, with the best results. She has Specialized Knowledge in federalism, water law and indian law, among other important areas of the law. Indeed, the National Native American Bar Association has even noted that she has, quote, significantly more experience with indian law cases than any other recent Circuit Court nominee, and weve had some pretty doggone circuit nominees in the past, including justice gorsuch, whose seat she will be filling. These are concepts that are critical in my home state of colorado federalism, water law, native american issues. Her expertise will prove to be value to both the court as well as the nations the people of this country as well. But as impressive as her credentials are, it is her meanor an and her it is her demeanor i justice eid has been called a mainstream commonsense westerner. As her former law clerks have noted, she is also fiercely independent. At the same time, she seeks out different viewpoints and thes to understand all sides of the issue that she addresses. Thati cansay from my experiencw school, i can say that while justice eid has her perspectives on the law, she cares very deeply on robust debate and hearing the views of others. I know from my classmates who had justice eid as their professor, those classmates of mine who didnt always agree with her perspectives, that justice eid wastope their debate, hearing their views. She engaged them. And she was never biased against differing perspectives but always applying the law as the law required, not as opinions suited. I also know that fierceliful jurists her former clerks spoke so highly about. She will follow the law regardless of personal whim or opinion. Whether discerning the proper role of the courts or evaluating the relationships between the federal government and the states, justice eid will side with what the law says. And she will do it in that commonsense western way that clearly and articulately tells the American People what the law is. Im privileged to know justice eid. Ive known her for a number of years now from my state as a student at the university of Colorado School of law to her work at the state of colorado. At the time that i served in the state legislature, she is an incredible human being a with delightful demeanor that will suit the court well. Id like to ask unanimous consent to submit several letters for the record, one from the National Native American Bar Association in support of justice eids nomination. I also ask consent to insert into the record a letter to chairman grassley and Ranking Member feinstein from a former law clerks of justice eid, as well as a letter from various supporters in colorado and one letter from the southern ute indian tribe. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Gardner thank you, mr. President. I wanted to spend some time talking about a letter dated july 2017. This letter was sent to myself and my colleague, senator bennet from colorado. This letter was entitled support for the confirmation of Justice Allison eid to the tenth Circuit Court of appeals and its already now in the record. I want to highlight some of the people who have signed this letter. Because when it comes to the courts and nominations, i think it is very important that we listen to the voices of those people who are closest to their court. They may be presiding over. Its also important that those who are close toast a practicing lawyer provide their opinions of a lawyer whos been nominated for the bench who is not already on the bench. In the case of justice eids supporters, there is an incredible list of people from across the political spectrum, both sides of the aisle, supporting justice eid. Let me just talk about a few of justice eids supporters because youll hear a lost debate about groups who support or oppose justice eid but the people who know her the best, the people who have practiced before her court, the people who have worked with her over the many years of Public Service that she has provided, dont just fall on the republican side of the aisle or dont just fall on the democrat side of the aisle, but its across the political spectrum, the support that she has gathered. Michael bender, former Colorado Supreme Court justice; justice reback can a love corliss, who served on the state Supreme Court and is one of the most highly regarded justices across the country; mary malarkey, no longer on the Supreme Court but she served as the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court; she was appointed by a democrat governor, somebody who believes justice eid would be an incredible addition to the court; kneel catchall, former department of justice Civil Servant for the obama administration, u. S. Solicitor general in fact, and if you look at the other supporters she has, most have run as a democrat candidate, supports the nomination and confirmation of Justice Allison eid. As you can see, once again the tenth circuit has an incredible nominee before it that i hope this body will soon confirm. I would urge my colleagues to move quickly during this cloture time so that we can actually approve somebody who i know will do an outstanding job for this court. I think urge their support and i hope that we will do our duty under our constitution to select those people who will be guardians of the constitution and do it in a way we will be proud of. Thats why i support the confirmation of allison eidd eid. Thank you, i yield the floor back my time. Mr. Whitehouse mr. President , i come to the floor for the 184th time to ask us to at last wake up to our duty as a congress to enact some prudent policies to address the looming effects of Climate Change. The presiding officer is well aware of what alaska faces from Ocean Acidification and ocean melting and Sea Level Rise and all of that. For the generations who will look back at this, i have tried in these speeches to chronicle the political tricks and bullying that have put congress the congress of the United States in tow to a massively conflicted special interest, such as we are incapacitated on this vital subject. The shamelessness of the fossil fuel industry and the spinelessness of congress in standing up to it will provide a long lesson in modernday corruption and political failure. The Trump Administration has been particularly loathsome, threatening the emissions standarded for cars and tax reduction, disbanding science advisory committees, liftin life moratorium on coal leasing and opening sanctuaries to energy confirms the Environmental Protection agency is working to eliminate rules on the leaking and flaring of methane and has rescinded requirements for reporting methane emissions. The president has announced his intention to withdraw the u. S. From the paris climate agreement. One particular target of this corrupted administration is the Clean Power Plan, the 2015 e. P. A. Rule to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions from American Power plants, a rule which many utilities and states supported, but its the industrys bottom dwellers who have the presiden president s ear, and they want to undo even this flexible framework from meeting emissions reduction targets. When e. P. A. Balanced the costs and benefits of the Clean Power Plan originally, it offset things like between 14 billion and 34 billion in Health Benefits in the form of preventive illnesses and deaths against the costs of industry compliance. The net benefits of the Clean Power Plan came out to between 26 billion and 45 billion every year. So with its official proposal to rescind the Clean Power Plan, e. P. A. Administrator and fossil fuel operative scott pruitt had to cook the books to wipe out this public benefit. Heres how he did it. There were two tricks. One derives from the fact that harms, injuries and losses caused by Carbon Pollution can take place many years after the pollution is emitted. Now, in financial matters, future costs and benefits are balanced against present costs and benefits using whats called a discount rate. Its more valuable to receive a Million Dollars now than a Million Dollars 20 years if now is the theory. But even the george w. Bush administration recognized for Health Care Rule making that and i quote them here special ethical considerations arise when comparing benefits and costs across generations. And they urge care about using a discount rate when a rule is expected to harm future generations. In 2015, the United States settled on a 3 discount rate to estimate the outyear costs of Carbon Pollution to society. Well, scott pruitt jacked that up to a 7 discount rate. So outyear harms, injuries, and losses would count for less. Now, mind you, our children and grandchildren will still suffer the exact same costs at 3 or at 7 . Its just that present day polluters, Scott Pruitts masters, get a way big discount. Pruitts second trick is only to count the Carbon Pollution harm within our borders. Well, you might say thats okay. Were americans after all. But its worth taking a look at what this rule does if all countries were to use it. Because theres a trick hidden in the middle of it. The fact is that we are harmed by other countries carbon emissions. And they in turn are harmed by our carbon emissions. And on the flip side, we harm other countries with our emissions and they harm us with theirs. There is a total amount of global emissions, and there is a total amount of global harm. If you call the total global emissions x and the total global harm y, what happens . When every country follows the pruitt method of only pricing local emissions and local harms . For purposes of illustration, lets say that there are three countries in the world. And each emits onethird of the total global Carbon Pollution and suffers onethird of the global harm from the collective global emissions. If each country only counts its own emissions and the harms only to its own country, guess what happens . All that crossborder harm never gets counted. It never gets counted. It disappears off the balance sheet. It vanishes into this trick of calculation. If you are the tool of the fossil fuel industry, how rewarding it must be to implement a trick that just vanishes so much of the fossil fuel industrys harm to the world. In this hypothetical, how much harm simply vanishes . Twothirds of it. Two thirmds of the harm twothirds of the harm simply vanishes, never to be accounted for. Not in the real world. Nothing has changed in the real world. In this threecountry hypothetical, total emissions is still x. Total harm is still y. None of that has changed. The pruitt trick of accounting just wiped twothirds of the harm off the books. Happy day for polluters and happy, happy day for the polluters tool for there will no doubt be rewards for implementing this trick. Those fossil fuel industry bottom dwellers no doubt think that this is pretty cute, this is pretty clever stuff indeed. High fives in the corporate boardrooms that they have a tool in office who will pull such a trick of magical vanishing Carbon Pollution harms. But the problem with these crooked little schemes is that the whole world is actually watching. Anybody can do the analysis that i just did and show that this is nothing more than a trick. And sooner or later, consequences do come home to roost. Out in the real world the Pacific Island nation of cureabati is buying up land in fiji so it can evacuate its people there when rising seas engulf its islands and eliminate the nation. It is on its way of becoming a modern day atlantis lost forever to the waves and you can replicate that risk along shores of bangladesh and burma, malaysia, and the mal maldese. You can add in the lost fisheries that left the country for cooler waters. If you think thats just a hypothetical, ask connecticut and rhode island lo lobstermen about their catch. You can add in the expansion of the worlds desert areas that forces farmers crops and shepherds flocks away from their historic homes. You can add unprecedented storms powered up over warming seas. As bad as things have been in houston and florida and puerto rico, we are rich enough to rebuild, to throw billions of dollars at the problem and we are. Other places havent got those resources. Without the help, imagine that suffering. And to those who will suffer in the future, what do we say . What on that day of reckoning, on that judgment day do we tell all those people who suffered . Ha, ha, ha, do we say. We came up with this trick that wiped most of the suffering off our rates. We used the discount rate your suffering to virtually zero . Is that the kind of america we want to be . Remember the saying the power of americas example is more important than any example of our power. Some example we would be. Some city on a hill if that was the way we behaved. The Natural World does not care about selfserving or ideological arguments. The Natural World is governed by immutable laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics. Scott pruitts polluterfriendly mathematics just doesnt add up. As michael greenstone, an economist at the university of chicago who helped develop the social cost of carbon put it, pruitts plan and ill quote him here was not evidencebased policymaking. This was policybased evidence making. There is enormous pressure in the Trump Administration to get rid of the social cost of carb carbon. Whats bizarre about the Trump Administration is that they do