02/12/2026 at 10:30AM
Full committee hearing.
Nominees:
- Dr. Wesley Brooks, of Florida, to be Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
- Jeremy Carl, of Montana, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (International Organizations)
- Billy Long, of Missouri, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Iceland
- Robert Sweeney, of Texas, to be United States Director of the Asian Development Bank, with the Rank of Ambassador
Brooks has been the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory & Scientific Affairs, Office of Water, EPA since May 2025. He was the Director of Federal Affairs for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (2020-2021) and then the Chief Resilience Officer, in charge of programs to respond to sea level rise, (Nov. 2021-May 2025) under Gov. Ron DeSantis. Previously, he was a staffer for a series of Florida Republicans, first for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (2013-2017, then Rep. Brian Mast (2017), then Sen. Marco Rubio (2017-2020). He first joined Ros-Lehtinen’s staff as a congressional fellow funded by Shell. He received a Ph.D. in 2013 from Rutgers University in ecological science. His academic work has included assessments of ecosystem damage caused by climate change, invasive plants, invasive fish, and citizen-science initiatives.
In his testimony, Brooks advocated for deep-sea mining and protecting the U.S. plastics industry from global regulation.
Jeremy Carl is a white supremacist.
Billy Long is an auctioneer and former Republican congressman who had a brief and ignominious tenure as IRS Commissioner from June 16, 2025 to August 8, 2025.
Robert Sweeney was the CEO of Mission National Bank and is an executive with Texas-based Accelex Resources. He is an advocate of geothermal energy and modular nuclear reactors.