WASHINGTON
- Senator Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., voted Wednesday against the
nomination of John Graham as administrator of the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs. Graham’s nomination,
however, was approved by the Governmental Affairs Committee by a
vote of 9-3. Joining Senator Lieberman were Senators Durbin,
D-Ill., and Torricelli, D-N.J. Following are excerpts from
Senator Lieberman’s statement, as entered into the record:
...I’ve weighed the evidence carefully. I’ve
reviewed Dr. Graham’s history and his extensive record of
advocacy and published materials. And I listened carefully to
his testimony before the Committee. I am generally inclined to
give the benefit of the doubt to the President’s nominees. But
in this case, my doubts are so persistent, and the nominee’s
inclinations are so tilted, that I am not convinced he would be
able to appropriately fulfill his responsibilities. In fact, I’m
afraid he would contribute to the weakening of government’s
protective role in matters of environment, health, and safety.
That is why I have decided to oppose Dr. Graham’s nomination.
Among the most essential protective duties
government takes on is shielding citizens from dangers from
which they cannot protect themselves, such as threats to our
national security and violence and disorder at home. But the
protective function also includes protecting people from
breathing polluted air, drinking poisoned water, eating
contaminated food, working under hazardous conditions, being
exposed to unsafe consumer products, and falling prey to
consumer fraud. This is not big government, it is protective
government, and I think it is one of the most publicly supported
roles government plays...
OIRA is the gatekeeper of government’s
protective role. In recent years, OIRA has reviewed rules
proposed by agencies to assess information on risks, costs and
benefits before the regulations can go forward. This nominee
would continue this traditional role for OIRA. He has charted a
more ambitious and, I believe, more influential role, by
declaring that he intends to involve himself in the "front
end" of the process. I assume this means he will take part
in setting priorities and budgets even before an agency has
developed its ideas on how to protect the public. It also means
he could call upon the agencies to conduct time-consuming and
resource-intensive research and analysis before they start
developing protections needed under our environmental statutes.
In the hearing on his nomination, Dr. Graham
acknowledged his opposition to the assumptions underlying our
landmark environmental laws - that every American has a
"right" to drink safe water and breathe clean air.
Indeed, he has devoted a good part of his career to arguing that
those laws misallocate society’s resources, suggesting we
should focus more on cost-benefit principles, which take into
consideration the bottom line but may sacrifice peoples’ right
to a clean and healthy environment. He has written generally,
for example, that the private sector should not be required to
spend as much money as it does on programs to control toxic
pollution, that he believes, on average, are less cost-effective
than medical or injury-prevention programs.
When it comes to specific measures, Dr. Graham
has said society’s resources might be better spent on bicycle
helmets or violence prevention programs than on reducing
children’s exposure to pesticide residues or on cutting back
toxic pollution from oil refineries. Bicycle helmets save lives.
And my record is clear on the damage violence does to our
society. But the problem is that Dr. Graham’s provocative
theorizing fails to answer the question of how to protect the
-more-
health of, for instance, the family that lives
next to the oil refinery. His rational priority setting may be
so rational that it becomes, to those who don’t make it past
the cost-benefit analysis, cruel or inhumane.
Because of what the nominee has written and said
he is that much more controversial because of the anxiety
created by the early actions of the Bush Administration with
regard to protective regulations. It began with the so-called
Card memo - written by the President’s Chief of Staff, Andrew
Card - which delayed a number of protective regulations issued
by the Clinton administration. The Card memo was followed by
action, such as the administration’s decision to reject the
new standard for arsenic in drinking water; its proposal to
rescind the rule to make mining companies responsible for toxic
waste left at mining sites on public lands; its delay of the
rule to protect mine workers against toxic underground
pollution; and its proposal to weaken the energy-efficiency rule
for central air conditioners.
As a senator reviewing a Presidential nominee
and exercising our constitutional advice-and-consent
responsibility. I do not consider whether I would have chosen
this nominee, because it is not my choice to make. However, it
is my responsibility to consider whether the nominee would
appropriately fulfill the responsibilities of the office. Where
we are dealing with the protective role of government, I
approach my responsibility with an extra measure of caution,
because the consequences of confirming a nominee who lacks
sufficient commitment to protecting the public are real and
serious to our people and our principles.
Taking all of these factors into account, I have
reached the conclusion that I cannot support Dr. Graham’s
nomination. Thank you.