Sen. Tom Carper currently serves as Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee and based on his past comments, he’s in no position to slow down the nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA
January 3, 2017
VIDEO: Flashback To EPW Member Tom Carper Urging That POTUS Deserves To Have His Team In Place
Sen. Tom Carper currently serves as Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee and based on his past comments, he’s in no position to slow down the nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA.
In 2013, Sen. Carper urged his colleagues to approve President Obama’s nominees because as he said, “The President, regardless of what party they are from, needs, for the most part, to have the team they want to put in place. They have been elected to lead. Let’s give them a chance to lead.” See the video and a full transcript below:
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), 2/26/13: “For folks who might be watching this from afar, this body used to operate very differently than it does today. The President would nominate people to serve in a cabinet or really to serve as judges and there would be hearings. There would be debate. Sometimes people would disagree. But, certainly, for Cabinet appointments and for sub-Cabinet level appointments, for the most part, the President got the team he, or someday she, asked for. That is the way we have done it as Governors across the country, and it is the way we still do it as Governors across the country. The idea of 4 years of this administration to still be playing a game of executive branch Swiss cheese—we have too many relatively high level positions, confirmable positions that are still vacant—is not good, whether it happens to be a Democratic administration or a Republican administration. The President, regardless of what party they are from, needs, for the most part, to have the team they want to put in place. They have been elected to lead. Let’s give them a chance to lead.”