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Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise as chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I rise today in support of the nomination of David Fotouhi to be the Deputy Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency.

Behind Administrator Lee Zeldin--who I believe is doing an excellent job--Mr. Fotouhi's position is of the utmost importance to the Agency, and his perspective is essential in returning the Agency to its core mission in support of President Trump's administration's agenda.

Mr. Fotouhi has spent the previous years of his career representing clients on matters relating to all types of environmental law. And before that, he previously served as the acting general counsel and principal deputy general counsel at EPA, so he has tons of experience. Mr. Fotouhi has been recognized by multiple national law publications for his work in environmental and energy law and as a leader on those issues.

Mr. Fotouhi's previous experience at the EPA provides him with a wealth of perspective on the Agency's critical role of protecting our environment, our land, and our water and our air. While doing so within the bounds of the legal authority that Congress has established, EPA Deputy Administrator is generally tasked with overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Agency.

In this role, Mr. Fotouhi will coordinate the work of EPA's important air, water, and chemical offices, in addition to the EPA's regional offices--which touches all of us--the research enforcement and general counsel office teams. Effectively integrating the Agency's work will be at the top of Mr. Fotouhi's list of responsibility.

Facilitating economic growth while protecting public health and the environment requires the Agency to establish consistent and legally defensible regulations, fairly and clearly enforces those rules, and communicate with the States, communities, and entities that are impacted by those regulations.

Throughout the confirmation process, both in meetings with me and in front of our committee in his testimony before the EPW Committee, Mr. Fotouhi displayed incredible knowledge and understanding of the tasks before him and pledged to uphold the principles of cooperative federalism.

His vast experience has positioned him well for service at the EPA, and his presence will move forward the initiatives that are important to the success of our country.

The fact of the matter is that Mr. Fotouhi is well-qualified and equipped to fulfill this role. I have confidence he will refocus the Agency back to fulfilling its core mission and away from pushing extreme regulations that threaten the reliability of our electric grid and our American competitiveness. Too often, we have nominees that have a lot of experience regulating but no experience advising entities on complying with regulations. This is an important perspective for the Agency to have and one that Mr. Fotouhi brings to the table.

I encourage my colleagues to join me and my fellow EPW Committee members in supporting this nomination so we can get to work together on efforts that improve the lives of Americans across the country and to protect--I will say that again--to protect our environment.

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