Commerce Postpones Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Commerce
January 10, 2017
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who serve respectively as the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, issued the following joint statement on the decision to postpone the January 12 confirmation hearing for Wilbur Ross, President-elect Donald Trump’s designee to serve as Secretary of Commerce until January 18, 2017, at 10:00 a.m:
“The general practice of the Senate Commerce Committee has been to require complete applications on candidates for Senate confirmation before holding a hearing. While Mr. Ross has submitted his responses to the committee’s questionnaire, we have not yet received the ethics agreement he is working on with the Office of Government Ethics and the Department of Commerce to finalize. In this instance, especially given that the committee will be proceeding with the hearing for another key cabinet appointment tomorrow, we have agreed to postpone Thursday’s hearing until January 18, so that ethics officials have additional time to complete their work and provide relevant information to the committee. We both remain committed to fair consideration of Mr. Ross’ nomination.”
Ross’s nomination questionnaire is available here.
“The general practice of the Senate Commerce Committee has been to require complete applications on candidates for Senate confirmation before holding a hearing. While Mr. Ross has submitted his responses to the committee’s questionnaire, we have not yet received the ethics agreement he is working on with the Office of Government Ethics and the Department of Commerce to finalize. In this instance, especially given that the committee will be proceeding with the hearing for another key cabinet appointment tomorrow, we have agreed to postpone Thursday’s hearing until January 18, so that ethics officials have additional time to complete their work and provide relevant information to the committee. We both remain committed to fair consideration of Mr. Ross’ nomination.”
Ross’s nomination questionnaire is available here.
