Democrats came down hard on President Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement office on Tuesday.
Susan Bodine, nominated to be assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, faced a grilling during her first confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., an outspoken critic of Trump’s EPA and a climate change proponent, took the lead in pressing Bodine at the hearing, while calling EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s team a “corporate raiding party” backed by “dark money” from fossil fuel companies.
Whitehouse prodded Bodine for assurances that if asked by Pruitt, or President Trump, to “back off” on enforcement that she would stand firm and enforce environmental compliance.
Whitehouse noted that Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and asked Bodine if she would comply with a similar request by the president.
“I can’t accept that premise,” Bodine replied, refusing to address the hypothetical scenario.
“You won’t follow the Pruitt model?” Whitehouse prodded, especially if told by the EPA administrator “to let it go” or “back off.”
Bodine replied that she was not “at all concerned that this circumstance will arise.
Meanwhile, committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., assured that any Democratic accusations that Pruitt suffers from conflicts of interest are without merit. Barrasso said the EPA ethics office has clarified that any conflicts are resolved and the issue is moot.
Trump’s energy and environment nominees have been piling up at the Senate. Two Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials, with two deputy secretaries of the energy and interior departments, were sent to the floor last week for a vote to be scheduled.
A vote on Bodine and nominees for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have not been scheduled for a vote after Tuesday’s confirmation hearing, which included EPA and NRC presidential nominees.
The only NRC appointee, Kristine Svinicki, is set to be voted on by the committee on Thursday. She was chosen by Trump to be chairwoman of the nuclear reactor safety commission. If approved by the Senate, she would serve her third term. Her current term runs out June 30.
