appreciation to christine lucius for years served. >> to herd the resolution and i like to say without objection, it bein be adopted. i hear no objection, it's adopted. i'd like to speak for just a minute and echo what senator lee has said about christine. i want to thank you for your hard work. we all know how that has worked out to have the committee function very diligently and get a lot of work out, because you work well with both democrats and republicans. all of us know that we wouldn't be able to get as much a done around here without not only your hard work but the hard work of a lot of your colleagues. so i thank you, christine, for helping the committee be successful and wish you well in your professional life. senator feinstein, he wanted to speak on the point? >> very briefly speeded we will take you live just outside the

senate to our senators are briefing reporters. >> let me start by saying i'll be going shortage of meeting down to the white house with senator schumer, senator feinstein and chairman grassley to discuss the supreme court nomination which the president has indicated will be coming down to us in a very near future. this is part of the consultation process, the constitution says advice and consent. and we will be taking the opportunity to give advice on a bipartisan basis to the president prior to his decision about who to send up. in terms of the senate scheduled today, we are hopeful we will get a cabinet nominee confirmed. as you know there's a lot of committee action today. i'll be filing cloture on secretary of state designee rex

tillerson which will ripen next week. and then we will anymore fulsome way moving to approving cabinet appointments both controversial and noncontroversial beginning next week. john. >> along those same lines, earlier today the senate committees voted out secretary designee chow. governor nikki haley and dr. ben carson. just to give you a context for the obstruction foot dragging that democrats are imposing upon this new president and his administration, at this point in president obama administration, five days into the administration there were 14 cabinet members confirmed. so far there are three under president trump. there's simply no excuse for this. 12 of the nominees have all other paperwork completed, and as a majority leader indicated,

once their boat out of committee they are available for floor action. but this is simply attempting to litigate or relitigate the election. our democratic friends need to get over the fact that the election is over, and now we have the responsibility of governing, hopefully together. but instead so far they have chosen just to obstruct and foot drag. anthony one of most shameful and reckless part of this is the way in which they delayed the confirmation of an important member of president trump's national security cabinet. you recall general mattis and general kelly were confirmed early, but director of the cia pompeo was carried over the weekend for debate time which were offered last friday but which was not agreed to an till monday. so we need to get our democratic colleagues to get over the fact that the election is done and gone, and they need to get with the program when it comes to approving these noncontroversial

nominees and give the president the benefit of the cabinet that he deserves in order to start governing for the benefit of the country. >> at the senate commerce committee we report out to nominees, wilbur ross and elaine chao, both of which are noncontroversial and should be cleared for floor action as quickly as possible. but as my colleagues have pointed out it's pretty clear this is nothing more than playing political games with his nominees, and nothing less of that. obviously the president won an election or key deserves to his people in place, and we want to be able to work with him. part of being able to get to work right away is getting your team out there. the democrats as is pointed out on day one gave president obama, or republicans i should take a president obama seven nominees and at the end of the too big. he got almost all of his nominees in place.

we got to on day one, and everything now is a fight to try and get these nominees put in place. but they will get there eventually. the democrats can play games, but it's not going to end up in any result other than it's just going to drag this process out and make it harder for the president and his team to begin the process of governing this country. when they get there we work with this administration, house and the senate are committed to repealing a replacing obamacare. we are committed to reforming the tax code. working to committed to reducing the regulatory burden that is making it so hard in this country for american businesses to create jobs and grow the economy. and we're committed to keeping americans safe and what is increasingly dangerous role. those articles that are shared. those are issues on which we are united, and we are looking for to rolling up her sleeves and going to work to make them become a reality.

>> president trump has nominated an all-star team for his cabinet. the chairman of the department of public works committee, to focus on what of those and that's the nominee to head the environmental protection agency. it's an agency which is built on a regulatory rampage for the last eight years with so many regulations that cost people their jobs, impacted states in terms of income to the states. the epa has lost its way. scott pruitt is the right person to be in charge of that agency, an agency that needs to be modernized, reformed, improved. people on both sides of the aisle have expressed confidence in attorney general pruitt because as attorney general in his home state of oklahoma, he is actually protected the environment, at the same time strengthen the economy and stood up for states' rights. when you take a look at epa

nominees for bill clinton, george w. bush and for barack obama, each of them was confirmed in january. each was confirmed in january. we are going to move ahead swiftly with scott pruitt votes in committee. we all want clean air and clean water and clean land, and we can do it without hurting the economy at the same time. >> on friday this country witnessed yet again a peaceful transition of power. i was fortunate enough to have dozens of colorado students watching the inauguration as they admired our constitution at work. unfortunately around the same time though unless at-will action was taking place in the senate. as chuck schumer and others decided that they would stall the nominations to the presence national security team. the fact is at this point in time previous president, dozens of cabinet members had been put in place five days after the inauguration. in this case a key person, the

cia, mike pompeo was denied confirmation. it's unacceptable that politics have taken a front seat while national security has taken a backseat. it must change. if you listen to the committee confirmation hearings that are taking place, some people seem to be more interested in cutting courses and hay bails on their nominees than they are and whether not they will do the right job before this country. stop the silliness. stop the circus. let's move on with the business of this country. >> senator schumer talked to the press last night about an infrastructure plan. is that something you're concerned about between cincinnati and a note of kentucky -- [inaudible] when you hear the plan that senator schumer talks about an when the president talks about, is a something you think you can get on board with or are you studying the --

>> i don't think we should borrow almost $1 trillion and plus-up a bunch of federal accounts and incur a lot of additional debt and don't build any projects to speak up. so i can tell you what i am against is a replication of the obama stimulus package in 2009. with regard to what we could before, my understanding is the administration has a team who are putting together a proposal that we can all take a look at. that includes people both inside the administration and if it the secretary of transportation, and they are going to come up with a proposal. we will take a look at it. i hope it will be something incredibly paid for. we have a $21 trillion debt, but i think we would all like to tackle infrastructure in a

credible way, and hopefully that's what they will recommend. spin. [inaudible] >> i can just tell you that on the whole issue of election fraud, which are democratic colleagues always argue his jurisdiction, there are people literally in jail in kentucky for this kind of activity. it does, it does occur. there are always arguments on both sides about how much, how frequent and all the rest, but most states have done a better job, most states, have done a better job on this front. but the notion that election fraud is a fiction is not true. >> you are meeting with the president today. what you encourage them to pick up supreme court nominee off the

list of 21 that he floated when he was running for the white house? and chuck schumer has not said whether not those people are acceptable or not outside of the mainstream or not. what is your view? >> i anticipate what we're going to get from the president is a highly qualified, well credentialed -- >> continue to watch this online@c-span.org. we will take your live to the senate floor. we may have debate thissu afternoon on senate nominations. e through south georgia taking the lives, unfortunately, of at least 15 georgians. among those areas hit the hardest were counties vowndersing the cities of adel and albany. these counties and cities are very near where i grew up and where i now reside personally. when last weekend's storms hit, emergency management teams there were still leadingec