Senate Republicans changed committee procedures to advance Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on Thursday suspended rules requiring at least one member of the minority to be present for a quorum. Republicans then one-by-one voted to approve of Trump’s choice to be the leading US environmental regulator, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.
Senate Democrats on the committee had boycotted the vote on Pruitt because they were unhappy with answers he gave them during the confirmation process—both in terms of content and veracity. Pruitt’s nomination had been expected to proceed through committee on Wednesday, but no Democrats showed up to the hearing, delaying the vote.
“We want to know: what was Pruitt talking about with companies like Devon Energy while serving as Oklahoma Attorney General?” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said on Wednesday, in a statement about Dems’ decision boycott.
“When I asked him in the hearing why he copied and pasted Devon Energy’s words verbatim onto official letterhead for the State of Oklahoma, he evaded my questions,” Merkley recalled.
Merkley and committee colleagues, including Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), were also upset that Pruitt responded to questions about his ties to Devon by noting: “such communications can be requested from the Oklahoma Office of the Attorney General.”
“’Go FOIA yourself’ is not a sufficient response from @realDonaldTrump’s EPA nominee Scott Pruitt to @EPWDems & @SenateDems,” Markey said in a tweet sent as Republicans were voting. Merkley said in his Wednesday statement that Pruitt “knows his office of the Oklahoma Attorney General has a track record of sitting on such information requests for years.”
Pruitt’s industry-friendliness has alarmed Democrats in other ways. As Oklahoma Attorney General, he sued the EPA numerous times. And during his confirmation hearing, Pruitt refused to recuse himself from eight ongoing lawsuits that he helped launched, as Oklahoma’s top prosecutor.
“He has spent most of his time as Attorney General suing the agency he is now on the verge of leading,” Merkley also noted. “Will he permanently recuse himself from anything having to do with those lawsuits?”
Sen. Barrasso chided his rebellious colleagues across the aisle, saying he took the “extraordinary step” of suspending several rules for the day because of the boycott.
Barrasso referred to Dems who, earlier this week, refused to attend Senate Finance Committee hearings, in a bid to hold up Trump’s nominations to lead the Department of Treasury and the Department of Health and Human Services. Steve Mnuchin and Tom Price, Democrats say, were deceptive in their confirmation hearings, not unlike Pruitt.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suspended committee rules on Wednesday to advance the pair of nominations.
Despite Congressional Republicans’ constant, shrill rancor during the Obama administration—they threatened for years, for example, to force a US government default, over policy disputes—Barrasso claimed Democrats’ opposition brought Congress into “uncharted waters.”
Republicans, Barrasso said, had never tried to stop “President Obama from setting up his government.” He claimed that Republicans’ decision, in 2013, to boycott a nomination hearing for Obama EPA head Gina McCarthy was, therefore, different.
