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19 Jan 2017
10 Highlights From Today’s Confirmation Hearings

10 Highlights From Today’s Confirmation Hearings

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10 Highlights From Today’s Confirmation Hearings,Price Thomas E (1954- ),Pruitt Scott,Trump Donald J,United States Politics and Government

10 Highlights From Today’s Confirmation Hearings

 
Democrats complained mightily about their questions being limited, but the Republicans, who hold the majority, get to set the rules. Four of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet choices faced aggressive questions, but avoided any major stumbles. Here are 10 highlights:
 
■ Representative Tom Price of Georgia, picked to be health secretary, said repealing the Affordable Care Act would not leave millions without health insurance.
 
■ Mr. Price offered lofty goals for replacing the law but gave few details about the administration’s plans.
 
■ He did not rule out cuts to Medicare or Medicaid.
 
■ Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and the pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, said he disagreed with Mr. Trump’s statement that climate change is a “hoax,” but hedged when asked how much of it is caused by human activity.
 
■ He defended what he called “common sense” environmental regulation, arguing that farmers, ranchers and business had been hurt by intrusive federal rules.
 
■ Mr. Pruitt said he would not deny the government’s finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a threat: “That is a law of the land.”
 
■ Wilbur Ross, selected to be commerce secretary, had a message for Mexico and Canada: Be ready to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
 
■ Some Republicans said they were taken aback by Mr. Trump’s threats to impose big tariffs, but Mr. Ross assured them that the president-elect was merely being a good negotiator.
 
■ Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, Mr. Trump’s choice for ambassador to the United Nations, criticized the international body’s treatment of Israel.
 
■ Ms. Haley said there would not be a Muslim registry in the United States.
 
Price says millions won’t lose insurance
 
Mr. Price tried to offer reassurance that the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act would not leave millions of people suddenly without health insurance, but Democrats challenged him repeatedly on that point.
 
“One of the important things that we need to convey to the American people is that nobody’s interested in pulling the rug out from under anybody,” Mr. Price said.
 
But Mr. Price gave up few details about Mr. Trump’s plan.
 
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who ran for president as a Democrat, pressed Mr. Price on whether he viewed health care as “a right.”
 
Mr. Price deflected. “We’re a compassionate society,” he said.
 
“No, we’re not a compassionate society,” Mr. Sanders shot back, lamenting the United States’ treatment of some of its neediest citizens.
 
Mr. Sanders also parsed Mr. Price’s remark that Americans deserved “access” to high-quality health care. “I have access to buying a $10 million home,” Mr. Sanders said. “I don’t have the money to do that.”
 
Paul defends Price
 
Mr. Price, who has faced intense scrutiny and criticism from Democrats over his stock trades while in Congress, found a defender in Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky.
 
“To question your motives, I think, is insulting,” Mr. Paul said. “To question whether you’re honest is insulting.”
 
Bennet finds a doctor in the House
 
Democrats have made clear their deep discontent with Mr. Price’s nomination.
 
But one of them, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, found a silver lining with the nominee, who happens to be an orthopedic surgeon.
 
“I have never shown a knee, my knee, to any nominee before Dr. Price came to my office,” Mr. Bennet disclosed when it was his turn at Wednesday’s hearing. “But he gave me some free medical advice and I’m grateful.”
 
“How you doing?” Mr. Price chimed in, showing a glimpse of his bedside manner.
 
“It’s terrible, but I’ll talk to you after it’s over,” Mr. Bennet said. “It’s not because of you.”
 
Warren seeks assurances on Medicare and Medicaid
 
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, pressed Mr. Price to address Mr. Trump’s pledge that he would not cut Medicare or Medicaid.
 
“Do you believe he was telling the truth?” she asked.
 
“I believe so, yes,” Mr. Price said.
 
Ms. Warren went on to ask Mr. Price to guarantee that he would “safeguard” that pledge and not use his administrative power to “carry out a single dollar of cuts to Medicare or Medicaid eligibility or benefits.”
 
Mr. Price did not provide such an assurance.
 
Mr. Pruitt, whose hearing attracted dozens of protesters to the Capitol, defended his long-held position that excessive government regulation was hurting business and energy development. Mr. Pruitt said his “first and primary goal” as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency would be “to return the agency to that core mission of protecting the American people through common sense and lawful regulations.”
 
He said that “farmers, ranchers, landowners and small-business owners have recently felt hopeless, subject to a never-ending torrent of new regulations that only a lawyer can understand.”
 
“They fear the E.P.A., and that just shouldn’t be the case,” he said. “If confirmed, I will work tirelessly to ensure that the E.P.A. acts lawfully, sensibly and with those hard-working Americans ever in mind.”
 
But several senators challenged him.
 
Lead came up repeatedly in the hearing, and Mr. Pruitt has come under fire for his answers. In an one round of questioning, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, asked, “Do you believe there is any safe level of lead that can be taken into the human body, particularly a young person?
 
Mr. Pruitt responded: “That’s something I have not reviewed nor know about. I would be very concerned about any level of lead going into the drinking water or obviously human consumption, but I’ve not looked at the scientific research on that.”
 
As the writer Susan Matthews at Slate noted, the E.P.A. says there is no safe level of lead in the bloodstream, though its regulations still allow extremely small amounts of lead in plumbing systems.
 
Mr. Pruitt’s statement led to a strong reaction online:
 

Source : Https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/confirmation-hearing-cabinet.html
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