Senate Republicans will try this week to overcome a Democratic senator's block on President Bush's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans on Wednesday set up a confrontation over the hold on Stephen Johnson's nomination imposed by Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del.
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans will try this week to overcome a Democratic senator's block on President Bush's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Republicans on Wednesday set up a confrontation over the hold on Stephen Johnson's nomination imposed by Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del. Undoing that Senate hold can require a lengthy process and a motion requiring a 60-vote majority in the 100-member body.
They acted days after Bush expressed frustration with Carper's gambit to extract more information from the administration on competing proposals to modify the Clean Air Act.
Carper told the Senate he hoped Republicans and the White House "would see that maybe the better part of the valor, and the way to get to a win-win situation, is to simply say, 'We'll provide the information that's been requested.'"
Democratic senators also have in place or are threatening to place holds on Bush's nominees to head the Food and Drug Administration and the office of the U.S. trade representative.
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Johnson, an EPA employee for about 25 years and the first person with a science background to be nominated for the top job, joined Bush for Earth Day activities last week.
"I put this good man's nomination in front of the United States Senate for a reason -- because he's plenty capable of doing the job," Bush said. "And now is the time for the United States Senate to confirm him."
Under Senate rules, a single senator can delay a vote to confirm a nominee. Carper has sent at least four letters to EPA since April 2003 seeking data to help him and his colleagues compare a Bush proposal on air pollution with two competing plans that also address carbon dioxide, the main "greenhouse" gas blamed for global warming.
In a letter to senators, Johnson offered last week to provide more modeling data within six to eight weeks. Carper replied with a counterproposal.
Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., lifted their holds on the nomination only after Johnson canceled a pesticide study in Florida involving children.
Source: Associated Press
