Democrats are boycotting President Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, whose nomination was scheduled for a committee vote Wednesday morning.
Sen. Tom Carper, of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, tweeted Wednesday that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has not answered Democrats’ questions thoroughly enough for them to vote on his nomination to lead the EPA.
“The @EPWDems asked Scott Pruitt important questions about his record as AG and his vision for the EPA. Those questions remain unanswered,” Carper tweeted ahead of the committee’s scheduled vote. One reporter tweeted that Carper was seen in the hallway with other Democrats and said he was going to the gym.
The Republican-led committees cannot vote on nominees without at least one Democrat present to establish a quorum.
Republicans on the committee blasted the boycott as an effort to sabotage the nomination process.
It’s an “effort to delay and obstruct the nomination” of Pruitt, said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the chairman of the environmental committee.
“It is a disappointing this turn of events,” the chairman added, saying there has been no precedent for opposing an EPA nominee. He went through a list of EPA administrators under both Democratic and Republican administrations, noting the speed at which they were approved.
Former Democratic President Bill Clinton’s EPA nominee, Carol Browner, was confirmed by the Senate one day after he took office. Former President Barack Obama’s pick to lead the agency, Lisa Jackson, was confirmed two days after he was sworn in as president in 2009.
“I hope this is not the new normal,” Barrasso said.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the former chairman of the committee, said Pruitt asnwered 10 times as many questions as prior EPA nominees under both Democratic and Republican administrations. He said Carper had Pruitt answer 1,078 written questions, whereas previous nominees were asked about 100 questions at the most.
Inhofe said Pruitt has been open to Carper’s concerns about the thoroughness in which he answered the questions, disclosing that the Oklahoma attorney general talked with the Democrat Monday.
It was the same questions as before, Inhofe said. “The other side just doesn’t like the answer,” he added.
Democrats also boycotted Trump nominees Steve Mnuchin to be treasury secretary and Rep. Tom Price to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. But the Republican leadership forced their approvals in the Senate Finance Committee by suspending the normal rules for a vote.
