Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate is debating the nomination of Wally Adeyemo to serve as the next Deputy Treasury Secretary. I expect his nomination is going to pass with a big, bipartisan margin, but I want to take a few minutes to lay out a few reasons why every Senator ought to support this nominee.

First, you hear a lot these days about how Members of the Senate are looking for unity. Three weeks ago, the Finance Committee approved the Adeyemo nomination unanimously by voice vote, and you can't get more unified than that.

That unanimous vote followed an excellent hearing, in which Mr. Adeyemo demonstrated his command of all the various issues the Treasury is confronting today. A severe jobs crisis. Worsening inequality. A dangerous shortage of domestic manufacturing in critical areas of our economy. Intense economic competition with China, including job rip- offs and trade cheating that have undermined American workers for too long. And many other big challenges.

Members understand that there will be policy disagreements with the other party, but Mr. Adeyemo made it clear that he wants to work on a bipartisan basis to confront these challenges. Members take him seriously on that and trust him because he has done it before at the Treasury as a member of the Obama administration.

Second, the pandemic economic crisis is far from over, and it is essential that the Treasury Department has its leadership team in place. COVID cases and deaths are still tragically high. Jobless claims are still incredibly high--they spent an entire year above the previous peaks. So millions of families in Oregon and around the country are still walking an economic tightrope, and that is one of the key reasons why Senate Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan earlier this month.

The Treasury is right at the center of the enormous effort to implement that legislation. It is extraordinarily challenging work. Getting relief payments out to tens of millions of Americans in a timely way. Saving millions of jobs at the State and local level, particularly teachers, firefighters and municipal workers. Launching a landmark expansion and reinvention of the child tax credit to cut child poverty in half. This is difficult work. It requires the kind of strong and committed leadership that Wally Adeyemo will bring to the Treasury Department.

I am also looking forward to working with him on the issue of shell companies. Late last year Congress passed landmark legislation to end the use of anonymous shell companies in the United States. Several members of the Finance Committee had spent years working to get that legislation passed. Now that it has become law, it is up to the Treasury Department to write strong rules and implement it. This is a vital challenge, and it is a long time coming. So I am very much looking forward to working with Mr. Adeyemo once he is confirmed. He is as highly qualified as they come. He is also a history-making nominee because he will be the first African American Deputy Treasury Secretary.

I support his nomination 100 percent. He got 100 percent of the Finance Committee's support a few weeks ago. I believe he will have strong bipartisan support from the Senate, and I urge all Members to vote to confirm this nomination

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