Another one of President Joe Biden's nominees went before Senate committee on Wednesday, and he looks to be just as problematic as the rest. As Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the Ranking Member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, raised concerns over, Carlton Waterhouse has tweeted #ResistCapitalism. Waterhouse is being considered for assistant administrator for the Office of Land and Emergency Management at the Environmental Protection Agency, The Hill reported.
We have receipts. This is the tweet Ranking Member @SenCapito was referring to when she asked @EPA nominee Carlton Waterhouse what he means by "the ends don’t justify the means” when it comes to energy and “#ResistCapitalism.” ?? https://t.co/uqKN8RIJFA
— EPW Republicans (@EPWGOP) September 15, 2021
The tweet from April 25, 2015 was in response to a tweet which has since been deleted.
"You tweeted in 2015 when you said, ‘The ugly truth about energy. The ends don’t justify the means.’ And then you hashtagged a bunch of things, one of which was #ResistCapitalism. This came to my attention and also sort of raised my ears a little bit because you are going to be dealing in your position with a lot of private entities," Sen. Capito pointed out.
"So I guess what does ‘resist capitalism’ mean to you and how would that interplay with what you would be doing? What does it mean when you say energy ends don’t justify the means," she asked.
Waterhouse did not recall that tweet or the context, and pointed out he is not active on Twitter. When pressed further by Sen. Capito about "#ResistCapitalism," as Waterhouse reiterated he did not remember the tweet or its context, he also spoke to his view on capitalism.
"I recognize the value of capitalism as a way of making sure that goods and services are made available to people, and I think reasonable and responsible regulation allows us to make sure that people can be safe and protected in the environment in their daily lives," he responded.
There's more questionable aspects to his past, though. Considering that President Biden himself has pointed out that he insists from his nominees a commitment to "racial equity," this is hardly surprising.
In an opinion page updated May 16, 2016, Waterhouse penned a piece for The New York Times titled "Reparations Would Hit at the Core of Racial Inequality." It read in part:
With all due respect to candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, racially neutral policies to help the poor miss the point. Until we confront white racial dominance as a society we will not eliminate racial inequality.
Reparations would not solve all our racial ills but they do strike at their core. Meaningful reparations would acknowledge that victims of racial injustice were worthy of equal regard and that whites gained immense and unfair advantages by denying that through centuries of mistreatment and discrimination. This would challenge the narrative that whites "deserve" the group-based advantages and privileges they enjoy.
In a December 10, 2015 for Indianapolis Recorder, "When white makes right," he wrote:
White racial dominance means and has always meant that, irrespective of the experiences of any white or Black individual, as a group whites have a disproportionate share of the things positively valued in society: wealth, education, political power, quality housing, leisure, security and abundant and quality food. African-Americans conversely have a disproportionate share of the things negatively valued in society: substandard housing, disease, underemployment, dangerous and distasteful work, disproportionate punishment, stigmatization and vilification. This reality is as firmly in place today as it was when the Declaration of Independence was signed. White racial dominance meant white men were authorized to use force to capture and return enslaved Black men or women who were off their plantations without permission. Likewise, white racial dominance enabled white mobs to lynch Black women and men with impunity and send pictures of the perpetrators and bystanders to friends and relatives as postcards. White racial dominance empowered two white men in Money, Mississippi, to kill 14-year-old Emmett Till without fear of legal repercussions in 1955, and it empowers police today.
He also has authored several other pieces, including:
- Reparations: The Problem of Social Dominance, March 30, 2016, World Environment and Island Studies
- Follow The Yellow Brick Road: Perusing The Path To Constitutionally Permissible Reparations For Slavery And Jim Crow Era Governmental Discrimination, September 2009, Rutgers Law Review
- Total Recall: Restoring the Public Memory of Enslaved African-Americans and the American System of Slavery Through Rectificatory Justice and Reparations, August 26 2011, Journal of Gender, Race and Justice
Avoiding Another Step in a Series of Unfortunate Legal Events: A Consideration of Black Life Under American Law from 1619 to 1972 and a Challenge to Prevailing Notions of Legally Based Reparations, April 1, 2006, Boston College Third World Law Journal
Waterhouse had worked for the EPA as an attorney in the 1990's, a law professor at the Indiana University McKinney School of Law, and has been in the Office of Land and Emergency Management since February.
The White House last week had to withdraw ATF nominee David Chipman. In March, Neera Tanden withdrew her name from consideration for OMB Director.