McConnell on Environmental Nominees: When Bad Policies are On the Table, Kentucky Families are On The Menu
‘We have every reason to believe that voting for Mr. Regan and Representative Haaland would be voting to raise gas prices for families who are already struggling, to raise fuel and heating bills for seniors on a fixed income, to take the tough times we’ve been going through and make them even tougher. I’ll be voting for American families — and against both of their nominations.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding nominations:
“That brings me to the issue of immigration more broadly.
“Just a few weeks onto the job, the Biden Administration and Secretary Mayorkas are flailing and failing on our southern border.
“The number of unaccompanied migrant children in Border Patrol custody has tripled in two weeks and now dwarfs anything seen during the last four years.
“Like I mentioned last week, this is not an isolated question of border policy alone. The backdrop behind this entire crisis is the giant push towards amnesty and insecurity that the Administration advertised throughout the campaign and every time they step to the podium now. That’s what has enticed people to flood in.
“Even now, Administration staff keep parroting strange lines like ‘Now is not the time to come.’ They keep saying that. Like there’s going to be a right time to break federal law? There’s going to be a good time to break into the country illegally, and people need to just be patient and wait for their signal?
“What on Earth?
“A lot of blame for this growing mess rests on Secretary Mayorkas.
“He’s spent the first weeks of his tenure downplaying and denying this crisis instead of solving it. But again, the Biden Administration’s far-left approach to this issue is not limited to DHS or to the border. Interior enforcement is a key component.
“On Secretary Mayorkas’s watch, we’ve seen what the Washington Post calls “a sharp drop” in arrests by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement — a collapse of more than 60% from just the prior few months. A political choice not to enforce the law.
“Judge Garland must ensure the Department of Justice takes its duty to uphold the law more seriously.
“After we confirm Congresswoman Fudge and Judge Garland, the Senate will consider two nominees I will not be supporting.
“They’d both report straight to the front lines of the new Administration’s left-wing war on American energy. They’d work to unbalance the balancing act between conservation and the economic comeback we badly need.
“To head the Environmental Protection Agency, the President has nominated Michael Regan, a longtime regulator and activist. Mr. Regan has plenty of experience.
“The problem is what he’s poised to do with it.
“He and the Administration are plainly prepared to put that experience behind the same far-left policies that crushed jobs and prosperity in states like Kentucky throughout the Obama Administration.
“The Clean Power Plan? Back on the table. The absurd Waters of the United States rule? Back on the table.
“Kentuckians know that when bad policies like those are on the table, it means their jobs, their livelihoods, and their communities are on the menu.
“Congresswoman Haaland, the President’s pick to lead the Department of the Interior, was literally an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. She has vowed to, quote, ‘keep fossil fuels in the ground’ and once pledged ‘to vote against all new fossil fuel infrastructure.’
“Her record and her views ignore the fact that American energy independence fueled prosperity for the working class and middle class over the last four years — yet in multiple of those years, our carbon emissions actually went down.
“The supposed choice between a clean environment and domestic energy independence is a false choice. It only exists as a zero-sum tradeoff in the minds of Democrats.
“We have every reason to believe that voting for Mr. Regan and Representative Haaland would be voting to raise gas prices for families who are already struggling… voting to raise fuel and heating bills for seniors on a fixed income… voting to take the tough times we’ve been going through and make them even tougher.
I’ll be voting for American families, and against both of their nominations.
Related Issues: Immigration, Homeland Security, Nominations
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