The Senate energy committee has scheduled votes Tuesday on President Trump’s nominees to lead the departments of Interior and Energy, while Democrats hold up a vote on his Environmental Protection Agency nominee, the panel announced Monday.
The Energy and Natural Resources Committee scheduled votes for Tuesday morning on the nominations of Rep. Ryan Zinke, the Republican lawmaker from Montana chosen to lead Interior, and former Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has been nominated to head the Energy Department.
The committee began holding confirmation hearings a week ago, with Zinke testifying Tuesday. Perry followed on Thursday, one day before Trump’s inauguration.
The two nominees are less controversial than Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is being considered by the Environment and Public Works Committee. The three nominees are the key Cabinet officials who would drive Trump’s energy and environment agenda.
Democrats on the environment committee are forcefully resisting Pruitt’s nomination. Democrats forced Pruitt to endure one of the longest confirmation hearings for an EPA nominee in 16 years, and are continuing to put pressure on him to follow up with written responses to dozens of additional questions.
Democrats have indicated that they probably will not agree to hold a vote until all of Pruitt’s questions are answered.
The top Democrat on the environment committee, Sen. Tom Carper, of Delaware, announced Monday that he and his fellow Democrats on the panel will hold their own hearing on the Pruitt nomination Tuesday afternoon.
The Republicans have the majority in the Senate and therefore run committee hearings and set the agenda of the panel.
“Following the committee hearing on Scott Pruitt’s nomination to head the EPA, serious questions remain about the nominee’s record and vision for the agency he seeks to lead,” a statement from Carper’s office read.
The hearing is not being held in the environment committee’s official chambers, but in the Capitol Hill Visitor Center, meaning it is not officially sanctioned by the committee’s GOP chairman, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming.
“All legitimate committee hearings are approved by the chairman and included in the official hearing record,” said committee spokesman Mike Danylak in an email. “The only legitimate nomination hearing for Attorney General Pruitt” was held Jan. 18.
Carper will hear testimony at the hearing from environmental and tribal groups, including Kelly Foster, who serves as senior counsel for the clean water group Waterkeeper Alliance. Foster is a former EPA unit chief for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office.
John Walke, director of the National Resources Defense Council’s climate program, also is scheduled to testify. Pruitt will not testify.
