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What to Watch: A Crush of Hearings, and a Transfer of Power Hearings This Week for Education and Health Posts Could Be Contentious
(about 11 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The Senate returns with an exceptionally crowded calendar as hearings on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet picks will dominate the week before the main event on Friday: Inauguration Day. WASHINGTON — Hearings for nominees for President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet were underway again on Tuesday, featuring his selections for two departments, Interior and Education, that will experience a sharp change in direction under Republican leadership.
■ Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, Mr. Trump’s nominee as health secretary, will face perhaps the sharpest questions from Democrats because of his opposition to the Affordable Care Act. The tone of the hearings on Tuesday may seem mild compared to what is expected on Wednesday at the hearing for Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
■ Rick Perry, the former Texas governor and Mr. Trump’s choice for energy secretary, will be asked to defend a department he once vowed to eliminate as a presidential candidate. ■ Representative Ryan Zinke, Republican of Montana, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of the Interior, pledged to care for public lands.
■ The House is out this week on recess. ■ Betsy DeVos, the pick for the Education Department, is expected to face aggressive questions from Democrats about her commitment to public education at her hearing scheduled for late Tuesday afternoon.
Break out your planner. Here is what to expect this week: ■ On Wednesday, Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, Mr. Trump’s selection for secretary of Health and Human Services, will face perhaps the sharpest questions from Democrats because of his opposition to the Affordable Care Act.
Last week featured challenging questions for some of Mr. Trump’s picks. Rex W. Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil chief executive chosen to be secretary of state, battled to soothe concerns about his past lobbying dictators. And Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Mr. Trump’s pick for attorney general, tried to fend off accusations of racism, among other charges. Mr. Zinke portrayed himself as an eager steward of the nation’s public lands, treading a fine line between the importance of preservation and utilization as he testified before a Senate panel as Mr. Trump’s choice for interior secretary.
Do not expect smooth sailing this week. Members of the House may be in recess, but senators have a crowded agenda that is expected to include confirmation hearings for Betsy DeVos, for education secretary, and Scott Pruitt, for head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Zinke professed his admiration not only for the naturalist John Muir, a champion of preservation, but also for Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the United States Forest Service. Mr. Pinchot advocated what he described as the planned use and renewal of natural resources.
Ms. DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist who has attracted opposition from pro-charter-school organizations and teachers’ unions alike, is scheduled to testify before lawmakers on Tuesday. Her hearing was rescheduled last week amid Democratic concerns that she had not completed her paperwork with the independent Office of Government Ethics. “It is also these lands that many communities, like the town I grew up in, rely on to harvest timber, mine and to provide our nation with energy,” he said in prepared remarks.
As of Friday, Ms. DeVos’s ethics review remained unfinished; senators are expected to press ahead with her hearing anyway, though the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has said it will not vote on her nomination until her paperwork is complete. He said one of his priorities leading the Interior Department would be addressing an estimated $12.5-billion backlog of maintenance and repairs in the national parks system.
Ms. DeVos, whose myriad business ties leave her especially prone to conflicts of interest, will be the first potential Trump appointment to have a hearing without finishing her ethics paperwork. Mr. Zinke broke with Mr. Trump on the issue of climate change Tuesday, disagreeing with the president-elect’s assertion at one point that it is “a hoax.” Mr. Zinke, who once said that climate change was “not proven science,” said the climate was changing and that humans were having an impact on it.
Mr. Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who has frequently sided with industry donors over federal regulators, will appear before a Senate panel on Wednesday. “I think the debate is what that influence is, what we can do about it,” Mr. Zinke said. “I don’t believe it’s a hoax,” he added.
Perhaps this week’s most contentious confirmation hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, when a Senate panel will take a look at Mr. Price, Mr. Trump’s selection for secretary of health and human services. He expressed his support for the president-elect’s desire for energy independence, though, and he described his approach to developing energy resources on public lands as “all of the above.”
Just days after congressional Republicans voted to move forward with plans to repeal President Obama’s health care law, senators will question Mr. Price, one of the law’s top critics in Congress. Republicans hope he can be an aggressive force within the administration as they work to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Democrats, who cannot block the repeal effort, are likely to take the opportunity to highlight their view that repealing the law will leave millions without health insurance. Mr. Zinke also drew a clear line on whether the federal government should keep control of its land. “I’m absolutely against transfer and sale of public lands,” he said. “I can’t be more clear.”
Ms. DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist who has attracted opposition from organizations supporting charter schools and from teachers’ unions, is scheduled to testify before lawmakers late Tuesday afternoon.
Her hearing, which was originally scheduled for last week, was postponed until Tuesday after Democrats complained she had not completed an agreement with the independent Office of Government Ethics that outlined a plan to deal with potential conflicts of interest.
Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s Republican chairman, said he would limit senators on the panel to five minutes of questions each.
Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said she wanted to know much more about Ms. DeVos’s “extensive financial entanglements.”
“As a billionaire with hundreds, if not thousands, of investments made through complex financial instruments — many of which are made in ways that are not transparent and hard to track — you need to make it very clear how you will be avoiding conflicts of interest should you be confirmed,” she said.
Ms. Murray added that she was concerned that Ms. DeVos had spent her career fighting to privatize public education and gut investments in public schools. She said sheplanned to press Ms. Devos to explain how she would use her role to support public education.
Perhaps this week’s most contentious confirmation hearing will Wednesday, when a Senate panel will take a look at Mr. Price, Mr. Trump’s selection for secretary of health and human services.
Just days after congressional Republicans voted to move forward with plans to repeal President Obama’s health care law, senators will question Mr. Price, one of the law’s top critics in Congress. Republicans hope he can be an aggressive force within the administration as they work to repeal and replace the health care law. Democrats, who cannot block the repeal effort, will most likely take the opportunity to highlight their view that repealing the law will leave millions without health insurance.
Watch for Democrats to attack Mr. Price’s support for overhauling the Medicare system, an idea that would move away from its open-ended commitment to pay medical costs toward a plan where beneficiaries receive a fixed amount.Watch for Democrats to attack Mr. Price’s support for overhauling the Medicare system, an idea that would move away from its open-ended commitment to pay medical costs toward a plan where beneficiaries receive a fixed amount.
More than half a dozen Trump administration nominees are expected to testify before Senate committees this week, many of them drawing less attention in the midst of a crush of hearings.
Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, Mr. Trump’s pick for interior secretary, will have his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. He has been a firm defender of keeping public lands under the control of the federal government, but he has also supported logging and mining on them.
On Wednesday, there will be hearings for Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor selected to be commerce secretary, and Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, a proponent of free markets and global trade picked for ambassador to the United Nations.
Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor and Mr. Trump’s choice to run the Department of Energy — which he once said he wanted to eliminate — will appear before senators on Thursday. His selection, to lead the agency charged with managing the nation’s nuclear arsenal and thwarting proliferation elsewhere, has raised questions among Democrats about his fitness for the job. Ernest J. Moniz, the outgoing energy secretary, is a nuclear scientist who was part of the negotiating team on the Iran nuclear deal.
And Steven Mnuchin — a Wall Street investor, Hollywood producer and the Trump campaign’s national finance chairman — will also have a confirmation hearing on Thursday on his selection as Treasury secretary.
Is that everyone, you ask? Not quite. The confirmation hearing for Andrew F. Puzder, the fast-food executive and Mr. Trump’s contentious pick for labor secretary, has been delayed indefinitely, for one. A date has yet to be announced for Dr. David J. Shulkin, picked to be secretary of veterans affairs — if confirmed, the first nonveteran to hold that post. And Mr. Trump has yet to select an agriculture secretary.
Mr. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States at noon Friday.Mr. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States at noon Friday.