00:00The chair recognizes herself. Mr. Zeldin, welcome. I take a very different view of
00:10your conduct in office since you took this office from the previous member of
00:18the Senate. Our nation is in a dire financial mess. Our debt has once again
00:27been downgraded. We are $37 trillion in debt with no end in sight. Every EPA
00:35budget I've seen in the 13 years I have been here, all of which prior to this
00:41president were under Democrat presidents, proposed massive increases in new
00:47employees at EPA. Thousands of dollars of increases. Thousands of employees. The
00:55most recent budget I saw proposed under the previous president was for 3,000 new
01:01employees at EPA. These are people we can't afford. Every state has its own
01:07Department of Environmental Quality and that's where cooperative federalism
01:13begins. You're making tough decisions. I applaud you for your proposed reductions
01:19in the budget. The laws will still be responsibly administered under your
01:26leadership. Broadly on the policy front, I'm pleased with your leadership on the
01:32endangerment finding, on rolling back the egregious power plant rule. Lots of rural
01:40electric co-ops have told me how devastating that would be. Thank you for
01:46rolling that back. I myself belong to three rural electrics in Wyoming so I hear
01:52from them all the time. You've redirected resources to the core EPA mission of
01:59protecting human health and environment so you're delivering on our promises to
02:05Americans. EPA does have an outsized influence on lives and livelihoods in
02:13Wyoming. And despite Congress's clear statutory direction to EPA requiring a
02:21decision in less than 180 days, Wyoming and North Dakota as well as other states
02:27have been held hostage by the previous administration's more than two years of
02:32inaction on state permit program approvals for coal combustion residuals or CCRs. On
02:40April 8th your office announced that EPA would take swift action to advance
02:45cooperative federalism and encourage states to pursue oversight and permitting
02:50of coal ash within their borders and propose a determination for Wyoming and
02:56North Dakota's state permit program approved for coal CCR and the coal ash permit
03:02program. Now it was refreshing to learn that a month later under your
03:07leadership and direction EPA proposed approval of North Dakota's CCR permit
03:13program. Well done, well done. Thanks to President Trump and your leadership at EPA,
03:19North Dakota received a response, an answer. Wyoming is the nation's top coal
03:27producer. Expediting EPA action on Wyoming CCR program would help ensure Wyoming coal is
03:33available to help meet our nation's growing energy demand and the new uses of coal we found. We're
03:40making asphalt out of coal. It's called coal fault. We're making bricks out of coal. These new uses
03:48will extend the important life of this resource source so it doesn't become a
03:53stranded asset. Do I have your commitment that working through cooperative federalism you will expedite
04:00action on Wyoming's coal program? Senator, I know how important it is to you and to your state. We will
04:07work to get it done as fast as humanly possible and and we hear you you have you
04:13as I was going through the confirmation process you had a long list of priorities
04:18that you wanted EPA to focus on and we're not going to pace ourselves we're not
04:22going to do it one at a time. You had a great list and we want to work through all of it at once.
04:26Well those of us from research producing states found that we were getting stonewalled under
04:36the last administration so I appreciate your responsiveness to administering the laws which
04:43is what you committed to when you stood before us and and we consider your nomination by the president
04:52for this job and to my way of thinking you have delivered ever since you got in office. So I want
04:57to applaud you and thank you for your hard work and we will continue to work together to have a
05:03strong economy and a strong environment. I am out of time but appreciate you very much being here
05:12today and appreciate the budget you have proposed. Thank you senator.
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