SENATE LIKELY TO VOTE ON MCCARTHY’S EPA NOMINATION NEXT WEEK

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
7/12/13

A Senate vote on Gina McCarthy’s nomination to lead the Environmental Protection Agency is likely to occur next week after a key Republican removed a significant hurdle to her confirmation. Four months after President Barack Obama nominated McCarthy, currently EPA’s top air quality official, a tense partisan standoff tied to her confirmation appears to be dwindling following an announcement from David Vitter (R-La.) the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who said earlier this week that he would not filibuster her nomination.

Vitter said he received adequate pledges from EPA addressing five concerns he had regarding the “lack of transparency” at the Agency. In a July 9 statement, Vitter said he brokered several “historic agreements” with EPA. “I’ve had very productive conversations with EPA over the last several weeks, and believe the agency has taken significant steps forward on our five transparency requests,” Vitter said. “These are huge, significant steps forward to bringing transparency to the agency, and I see no further reason to block Gina McCarthy’s nomination, and I’ll support moving to an up-or-down vote on her nomination.” Vitter said EPA has agreed to retrain its entire workforce on records maintenance and the use of personal e-mail accounts, as well as publish all Notices of Intent to Sue and Petitions for Rulemaking online to gain “public input in closed-door settlement agreements.” He said EPA will also convene an independent panel of economists to review EPA’s modeling and how it measures the regulatory impacts of its rulemakings, as well as obtain the underlying scientific data used for many of its clean air regulations. “For the first time we should be able to determine if there is any way of independently re-analyzing the science and benefits claims for a suite of major air regulations,” Vitter said.

Vitter and his Republican colleagues on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had tied their support of McCarthy to whether EPA adhered to the transparency requests, largely forgoing the opportunity to stake out opposition based on some of the more controversial air quality regulations she has spearheaded in her four years at EPA’s air office. The GOP members boycotted the Committee’s first vote on McCarthy’s nomination in May, and none voted for her a week later when the panel cleared her nomination on a tight vote. Committee Democrats had criticized the Republicans for sending McCarthy more than 1,000 questions for the record following her nomination hearing in April, which Democrats said was excessive.

Reid Sets Up Standoff Over Fed Nominees

Vitter’s announcement came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) flirted with implementing the so-called “nuclear option,” which would change Senate rules to ease the passage of stalled executive branch nominations. Reid said the move was needed in order to prevent what he said was continued Republican obstructionism on executive branch nominees, and he moved to schedule a floor vote on McCarthy’s and six other controversial nominations next week. But Senate Republicans were quick to warn of the repercussions of such a move, saying it would likely poison any chance of bipartisan compromise on most legislation moving forward.

Reid will need the 60 votes to overcome a procedural hold Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has continued to maintain on McCarthy’s nomination since March. Blunt confirmed this week that the hold—which is in protest of what he said is the lack of a federal plan for a controversial flood control project in his home state—is still in place.

President Obama had criticized Senate Republicans for stalling McCarthy’s nomination during a June 25 speech unveiling a broad federal climate plan. “She’s been held up for months, forced to jump through hoops no Cabinet nominee should ever have to—not because she lacks qualifications, but because there are too many in the Republican Party right now who think that the Environmental Protection Agency has no business protecting our environment from carbon pollution,” he said in a speech at Georgetown University, calling on the Senate to “confirm her without any further obstruction or delay.”