Thursday, April 08, 2004
By John Heilprin, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Four of President Bush's nominations for top jobs
at the Environmental Protection Agency were put on hold Wednesday
by Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vermont, who said he was protesting the
agency's refusal to provide him documents over the past three years.
Jeffords said he had been "stonewalled in getting information
from the EPA" and pointed to 12 unmet requests for documents
between May 2001, when he left the Republican Party and became an
independent, and January 2004.
"I have bent over backwards to try to accommodate the EPA,
but my patience is now worn out," Jeffords said. "I had
hoped that we could put the posturing aside, receive information
to which we are entitled from this agency, and get on with a productive
dialogue about environmental policy."
Most of the requests were made before Mike Leavitt became EPA administrator
in November. The former Utah governor replaced Christie Whitman,
a former New Jersey governor.
The documents mostly have to do with the Bush administration's
changes to air pollution rules which eased requirements that power
plants install modern pollution-control equipment when expanding
or significantly modifying operations.
"The information I requested, quite simply, would help us
and the public better understand how the administration arrived
at its questionable interpretations of the Clean Air Act,"
Jeffords said.
Jeffords, the most senior non-Republican member of the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee, was joined on March 4 by the panel's
chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, in writing to Leavitt "to
express our commonly held position that the agency is obligated
to respond to requests from each the chair and ranking member."
EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the agency was reviewing Jeffords'
request. "Hopefully we can resolve this issue soon," she
said.
The four nominations Jeffords put on hold are:
* Stephen Johnson, now EPA's assistant administrator in charge
of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, to
deputy administrator, the No. 2 job in the agency.
* Ann R. Klee, a senior legal adviser to Interior Secretary Gale
Norton, to become EPA's general counsel.
* Charles Johnson, to become EPA's chief financial officer.
* Benjamin Grumbles, to assistant administrator overseeing the
Office of Water.
Source: Associated Press
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