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.
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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.