Senator holds up EPA nominees over document requests

Four of President Bush's nominations for top jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency were put on hold Wednesday by Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member James Jeffords, I-Vt., who said he was protesting the agency's refusal to provide him with documents over the past three years.

Jeffords said he had been "stonewalled" 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 told the Associated Press. Most of the requests were made before current EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt replaced former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman.

The documents largely relate to the Bush administration's changes to air pollution rules, easing requirements that power plants install modern pollution control equipment when expanding or significantly modifying operations.

Jeffords was joined last month by Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., in writing to Leavitt "to express our commonly held position that the agency is obligated to respond to requests from the chair and ranking member."

An EPA spokeswoman said the agency is reviewing Jeffords' request, adding, "Hopefully we can resolve this issue soon."

The four EPA nominations Jeffords put on hold include: Stephen Johnson, now assistant administrator in charge of the Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances, to become deputy administrator; Ann Klee, a legal adviser to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, to become general counsel; Charles Johnson, to become chief financial officer; and Benjamin Grumbles, to assistant administrator overseeing the Office of Water.