As Republicans Plan to End the Filibuster, Whitehouse Sounds the Alarm

Washington, D.C.— U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is sounding the alarm as Republicans plan to overrule the Senate Parliamentarian and end the filibuster—and they are counting on no one noticing.

Republicans are moving full steam ahead to overrule the Senate Parliamentarian’s decision regarding California’s clean air waivers that allow the state to implement more protective pollution standards for cars and trucks.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has determined not once, but twice, that California’s Clean Air Act waivers are not rules under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), and the Senate Parliamentarian affirmed that any CRA resolutions on this subject would therefore require 60 votes to secure Senate passage.  Overruling the Parliamentarian and bypassing the filibuster amounts to going nuclear, and Republicans are threatening to do it as early as next week.

“Republicans are delusional if they think overruling the Parliamentarian on a legislative matter is anything but going nuclear.  Just as we saw with judges, there is no cabining a decision to overrule the Parliamentarian, and so any suggestion that this situation is ‘exceptional’ or that the precedent it would create would be ‘narrow’ is magical thinking.  Put simply, if Senate Republicans move forward with this plan, they will break the Senate—and they should be eyes wide open about the consequences. That they might do this over a states’ rights issue is particularly rich,” said Ranking Member Whitehouse.

Ranking Member Whitehouse recently joined Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on the Senate floor to make clear the Pandora’s box that Senate Republicans’ are threatening to open—and what it means for the Senate’s ability to deliver for the American people moving forward.

“‘If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,’ it never ends.  Pretend all you want that these waivers are exceptional or that any precedent overruling the Parliamentarian would be limited.  That’s not the way it works.  Soon some members will think their thing is exceptional and push to use the precedent.  And on and on it will go, if you give the mouse the cookie.  You’d be upending 50 years of treating preemption waivers as agency decisions and not rules; 30 years of deferring to the GAO and the Parliamentarian on what constitutes a ‘rule’ for purposes of the CRA; and centuries of Senate procedure,” said Senator Whitehouse on the Senate floor. 

WATCH Senators Whitehouse, Padilla, and Schiff warn that the Republican plan to overrule the Parliamentarian and overturn California’s Clean Air Act waivers amounts to going nuclear.

Senator’s Whitehouse, Padilla, and U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also led Democratic Ranking Members in strongly warning Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-W.Y.) of the dangerous and irreparable consequences if Senate Republicans overrule the Senate Parliamentarian’s decision on California’s waivers. 

Republicans are so determined to pollute the air that that have reversed their position on overruling the Parliamentarian and ending the filibuster.  Shortly after becoming Majority Leader, Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) said he would advise Republicans against overriding the Parliamentarian in reconciliation, calling it “totally akin to killing the filibuster” and warning, “We can’t go there. People need to understand that.”