'May Be The Most Unfit Nominee Ever': Sheldon Whitehouse Absolutely Torches Key Trump EPA Nominee

Forbes Breaking News

During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) spoke about the nomination of Sean Donahue to serve as General Counsel for the EPA.

Transcript

00:00I rise to oppose the nomination of Sean Donahue of Florida to serve as general

00:06counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Donahue may be the most

00:12unfit nominee ever for any federal agency general counsel. As I said in my

00:20remarks in committee, this guy would have trouble getting an entry-level legal

00:25position in any one of our offices. Yet, here we are. The Constitution provides the

00:33Senate with advice and consent power. This power should carry some meaning. Advice and

00:38consent should not be empty words, a rubber stamp. The Senate confirmation

00:44vote on Mr. Donahue that is moments away shows how little we care to live up to

00:48that constitutional responsibility. This is a truly preposterous nominee. The EPA

00:55general counsel is the chief legal advisor to EPA on environmental laws including

01:00the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund Act

01:03and others. On the agency's development and implementation of regulations under

01:09its various statutes and on litigation strategy with DOJ in court challenges to

01:14agency actions. The general counsel oversees nearly 200 lawyers and 300 total

01:20staff. Mr. Donahue has no experience qualifying him to do any of these things. He

01:27has never tried a case to verdict, never taken a deposition, never signed a pleading,

01:35never argued a motion. He has never personally litigated any case, let alone federal

01:43cases implicating our nation's most important environmental laws. What has he done? Mr.

01:49Donahue practiced law for a year and a half at a small firm in Buffalo that fired him for

01:55his version being, quote, overloaded with work. He was not even a member of the New York bar,

02:00however, and he then failed the DC bar on his first attempt. He claims in New York to supervise

02:07six state individuals, which seems a stretch for someone not even a member of the bar. And

02:14there is no evidence, whatever minimal and unsuccessful legal experience Mr. Donahue had,

02:21that any work he may have done bore at all on the laws and regulations applicable to EPA.

02:29The previous seven Senate-confirmed EPA general counsels were pretty impressive.

02:34Counsel Prieto, two decades in federal service, including as general counsel at both the Department

02:39of Agriculture and DOJ's Energy and Natural Resources Division. Counsel Leopold, 14 years as an

02:45environmental lawyer, general counsel of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

02:49Counsel Garbo, 21 years practicing environmental law in the public and private sectors, including at EPA and DOJ.

02:56Counsel Fulton, 22 years of leadership roles at EPA, following eight years at DOJ's Environment and Natural

03:03Resources Division. Counsel Martella, Court of Appeals Law Clerk, seven years with the Natural Resources

03:08section of DOJ, acting EPA general counsel. Counsel Klee, law firm for nine years, chief counsel to the

03:16Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for five years, senior counselor to the Secretary of the

03:20Interior. Counsel Fabricant, two years in private practice and five years as counsel, then chief counsel

03:27to then New Jersey Governor Christy Todd Whitman. This guy, a year and a half, fired, then in-house counsel at a solar

03:38company, tried no cases ever. So why him? Well, I suspect part of it is that he'll be so grateful

03:49that he'll do whatever he's told. We've actually seen this already, even before his confirmation. He

03:57testified that the Trump administration's current assault on congressionally authorized, appropriated,

04:04and obligated funding was legal. Never mind multiple federal district court orders to the contrary.

04:14I'd love to see him take that argument into those courts that had already found those orders illegal.

04:21Second, and perhaps more telling, who cares at EPA if their counsel has neither experience nor knowledge?

04:30They're going to be overseen by the fossil fuel industry anyway. He'll be told what to do

04:36by fossil fuel polluter lawyers, so all he'll have to do is put what they want on EPA letterhead and file it.

04:44Oh, yeah, and the NEPO thing. His significant other is the deputy director of presidential personnel,

04:53a role with purview over every political appointment, including his.

05:00Mr. President, this is a pretty bleak low point in Senate nominations history. This is the last chance

05:07to pull back from the brink of confirming likely the most flagrantly unqualified person ever

05:15for an agency general counsel position. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

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