Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, in a few minutes, I will put forward the unanimous consent request that the Senate take up and approve a highly qualified and unquestionably noncontroversial nominee. I am going to take just a few minutes to talk about Jonathan Davidson, nominated to be the next Deputy Under Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the Treasury Department.
To do this briefly, there are a few key points to make about this important nomination. To start, Jon isn't just a person off the street being nominated for a new job in the Biden administration. In fact, my guess is, virtually every Member of this body, Democrats and Republicans alike, have worked with Jon at one point or another.
From 2011 until he was nominated this past spring, Jon served as chief of staff to another Finance Committee colleague, Senator Bennet. He is known as somebody who is honest, who is hardworking, and who is committed, most importantly, to bringing people together to tackle big challenges, and he has been doing it a long time.
Before his work with Senator Bennet, Jon served as chief of staff to Senator Paul Sarbanes. He spent time in the office of Representative John Sarbanes, and he was later chief counsel to our friend and colleague, Senator Mark Warner. You don't have to take it from me that Jon knows his way around the Congress. All of those Members trusted Jon as a right-hand man.
The second issue: I can't find any controversy with respect to his nomination. He cleared the Senate's Finance Committee on a 28-to-0 vote.
Let me repeat that: 28-to-0 vote.
In fact, the Finance Committee reported out several nominees this Congress without any Republican opposition, none at all. Normally, that would be enough to pave the way for prompt and full Senate consideration, but I think we all understand these are not normal times here in the U.S. Senate.
It used to be the case, at the end of July, the two sides would come together and look to pass a package of noncontroversial nominees by unanimous consent. My Finance Committee team thought this would be the case this year. Unfortunately, that did not take place. Senate Republicans were just in no mood to clear even the most uncontroversial nominees.
This is an extraordinary level of obstruction beyond what you saw when the previous administration was staffing up. For example, let's take the previous two nominees for the same position Jon is up for.
Drew Maloney was the first Trump nominee for Legislative Affairs at Treasury. The Finance Committee held a hearing on this nomination on June 7, 2017. The committee voted on his nomination a week later, favorably reported by a vote of 25 to 1. A few weeks after that, the full Senate passed his nomination by unanimous consent, along with several other nominations for roles in the Trump Treasury Department. That is how the process generally unfolds.
Two years later, Brian McGuire was nominated to replace Mr. Maloney. His hearing was held July 24, 2019. The Finance Committee approved his nomination a week later. He was confirmed to serve in the Trump administration on September 24.
In both cases, these two nominees, colleagues, were confirmed 2 months after their hearings.
Jon Davidson has been waiting 4 months since his hearing on May 25-- nearly twice as long as Trump nominees waited for the same job.
I think we all understand that it is essential to have qualified individuals heading up offices of Legislative Affairs. They help to make sure administrations follow the laws, just as the Senate passes as intended. They help Members write legislation. They make sure that all Members get responses to their questions with respect to oversight.
Setting everything else aside, you would think Senate Republicans would be especially interested now in making sure the Senate can perform that essential oversight. I myself am looking for some straight answers to a number of oversight requests I had posed to the Treasury Department, and having Jon installed in his new role as Treasury would sure help to move that process along. Federal Agencies and the Congress need these legislative point guards in order for Agencies to run as smoothly as possible.
This isn't a policy position, nor is Jon Davidson a nominee who raises any major concern from anybody. I have yet to hear even anything resembling a substantive reason from Senate Republicans for opposing a nominee like Jon Davidson, who got a 28-to-nothing vote out of committee to lead this office. There is no reason for delaying any longer.
168, Jonathan Davidson, to be Deputy Under Secretary of the Treasury; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, let's understand exactly what is at issue here. Jonathan Davidson has been nominated to be the Deputy Under Secretary for Legislative Affairs. In that particular role, he would not be directly involved in decisions over sanctions, No. 1.
No. 2, when it comes to Nord Stream 2, the Biden administration, to their credit, has recognized the threat from Russia, but also that the pipeline is nearly complete and the Trump administration failed to stop the construction.
Everything my colleague from Texas is raising in his concerns about Nord Stream 2 is already happening with another pipeline--Turk Stream 2--and my colleague is aware of this. He has been briefed repeatedly.
Now, for those who don't have access to the same kind of information that my colleague has, gas is already being diverted from Ukraine into Europe through Turk Stream 2 because the past administration did nothing about that pipeline either.
The Biden administration has actually put a plan forward to mitigate the effects of Nord Stream 2 and has received concrete agreements from the Germans to move Ukraine toward energy independence and address Russian threats.
I am just going to close with just another dose of good government. The 9/11 Commission specifically warned about the need to have senior, confirmed individuals in place to avoid a threat to the homeland. And, by the way, we did that during the Trump administration. We have far less people confirmed today than we did in 2001, before 9/11.
In my view, this has got to end.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to be very brief and then make a unanimous consent request.
Again, we have a difference of opinion with respect to the facts. That is what the Senate is all about--real debate. In a moment, I am going to ask unanimous consent to put into the Record at this point an article from just a few days ago from the Wall Street Journal that makes the truth about Nord Stream 2 AG very clear.
In effect, in the Wall Street Journal article that we are going to put into the Record, the pipeline owner said last week that construction on the pipeline has been completed.
There is no reason to object to this very talented individual, John Davidson, to head this important post after he got a 28-to-0 vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
I think this article in the Wall Street Journal that I have just asked to be printed in the Record at this point in the debate, so we can make sure the facts are correct, supports our basic proposition on this side of the aisle.
13] Senate Republicans Vow To Block Treasury Nominations Until Nord Stream II Firm Is Sanctioned (By Ian Talley and Brett Forrest)
Washington.--Senior Senate Republicans on Monday threatened to indefinitely hold up the nominations of five top Treasury Department officials if the Biden administration doesn't blacklist the firm managing Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said they are prepared to approve the nominations, including two national security posts that oversee sanctions and counterterror finance, if the Treasury Department blacklists Russia-owned Nord Stream 2 AG.
The Biden administration has implemented sanctions against several firms that have provided support to the project but not against Nord Stream 2 AG, saying that it would irritate relations with critical ally Germany and do little to stop the project, given that it was near completion. Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas-export monopoly and the pipeline owner, said last week that construction on the pipeline had been completed. But there are still bureaucratic hurdles that have to be overcome to get it running.
Nord Stream 2 is designed to accommodate the transmission of 55 billion cubic meters of gas annually, the company said.
Republicans say they are concerned the pipeline project bolsters Europe's reliance on Russian energy and gives Moscow leverage over Washington's trans-Atlantic allies. By holding up the five top Treasury nominations, they hope to pressure the administration into sanctioning the managing firm and stymie the pipeline's startup.
``The administration's so-called `deal' with Germany hands Vladimir Putin a geostrategic victory, entrenches corrupt Russian influence in Europe, and drastically weakens the security of Ukraine, Poland, and other states on the frontline of Kremlin aggression,'' Mr. Toomey, the ranking member of the Banking Committee, and Mr. Cruz said in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations Committees.
A Treasury spokeswoman said that while the department has experienced career staff who are experts in their fields, ``The Senate should move quickly to confirm these nominees who are integral to disrupting illicit finance, combating terrorism, and administering sanctions.''
Nord Stream 2 AG officials didn't respond to a request for comment.
The Banking Committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the nominations of Brian Nelson as the Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence and Elizabeth Rosenberg for the role of assistant secretary for terrorism financing.
Without Republican support in the committee, Democratic lawmakers face long odds getting the nominations approved.
That could leave empty the post responsible for overseeing U.S. sanctions policy, extending a vacancy that has already lasted nearly two years. The nominations of Jonathan Davidson as deputy undersecretary, Lily Lawrence Batchelder as assistant secretary for tax policy and Benjamin Harris as assistant secretary for economic policy all have been committee-approved, but full Senate ratification has been held up by Mr. Cruz.
The Texas Republican said he's prepared to lift his holds-- as well as those he has on nearly two dozen State Department appointments--if the administration commits to sanctioning the Russian project management firm.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The chairman of the Banking Committee, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), directed questions to the State Department and White House. ``Decisions on sanctions regarding the NS II pipeline are made by the administration,'' a spokeswoman for Mr. Brown said.
The Republican senators say a federal law called the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, signed into law in 2017, mandates blacklisting companies or individuals involved in evasion of the act's sanctions. They say the provisions allow for the administration to delist the company, but that opens the door for Congress to vote on the issue.
Republican aides said the law mandating sanctions had bipartisan support, fueled by concern the Trump administration would treat Moscow too favorably. Given that some Democratic lawmakers opposed the Biden administration's Nord Stream 2 decision, those aides said Congress could vote to keep the firm on Treasury's blacklists.
The risk of sanctions, the aides said, could dissuade companies from providing certification.
In November, Norwegian certification company DNV suspended its work on Nord Stream 2 after assessing that its activities could expose the company to sanctions under Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act, a 2019 U.S. law specific to the pipeline, a company spokesman said.
Last week, Germany's energy regulator Bundesnetzagentur received Nord Stream 2 AG's application for an operating license. The company has four months to engage an independent certification company to complete an assessment of the pipeline's operational integrity.
Once a certification is complete, the German regulator would send its decision to the European Commission, but this isn't the final hurdle to gas flows. Initial deliveries could face additional, unrelated delays. Last month, a German court rejected Nord Stream 2 AG's bid to bypass a European Union pro-competition regulation mandating that a gas producer and the company that transports the gas be separate entities.
One of the congressional aides said the Biden administration, besides worrying about creating diplomatic friction with allies, may also be concerned about setting precedent regarding sanctions, because Treasury officials also could have to sanction other companies.
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