Info Access May Stall EPA Nominations in Senate

Senate confirmation of nominees for several top EPA posts may be stalled by Environment Committee Democrats frustrated over agency unresponsiveness to their information requests.

Environmental Protection Agency nominations at stake include Stephen Johnson for deputy administrator, Ann Klee for general counsel, Charles Johnson for chief financial officer, and Ben Grumbles to head the water office.

EPA has told Environment Committee members, who have legal oversight authority over the agency, that they deserve no more access to EPA documents than the general public is allowed under the Freedom of Information Act. EPA has refused to provide documents on the grounds that they are exempt from FOIA (largely because it claims they are pre-decisional deliberative documents).

Committee Dems have asked for a wide array of documents relating to EPA's decisions on Clean Air Act new source review, mercury rules, methyl bromide, combined sewer overflows, and other matters. Critics have charged that EPA was unduly influenced by industry on those decisions. Ranking minority member James Jeffords, (I-VT),  originally asked for some of the documents as early as 2001, when he chaired the committee.

After two years of delay, Jeffords said at a March 31 hearing on the four nominations, EPA "suddenly sent a letter to me in 2003 claiming that I could not have the information because I was no longer a Committee Chair," making what he called "a novel and baseless assertion that my party status is the determining factor as to whether I may obtain information for this Committee and for my constituents."

Threats by the committee minority to delay the nominations are so far mostly implicit rather than overt. Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) joined the minority in a letter urging EPA to provide the information, although he is expected to try to bring the nominations to the Senate floor. The committee has not yet voted on any of them. Grumbles and Johnson are currently filling in an "acting" capacity the positions for which they are nominated.

-- "EPA Nominees May Face Senate Holds Over Withheld Documents," Inside EPA, March 29, 2004, available by subscription only, http://www.insideepa.com

-- "Senator Jeffords and EPW Minority Members Demand Access to EPA Documents," Minority release, Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, March 29, 2004, http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=dem&;id=219751

-- "Senator Jeffords' Statement at Nominations Hearing," March 31, 2004, http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=dem&;id=219840

-- Oct. 27, 2003, letter from EPA Asst. Adm. Benjamin Grumbles to Sen. James Jeffords, http://jeffords.senate.gov/grumbles_letter.pdf

-- "Wyden to Block EPA Nominee; Dems Consider More Holds,"  Greenwire/ Environment & Energy Daily, March 11, 2004, by Darren Samuelsohn, http://www.lcv.org/News/News.cfm?ID=2370&;c=27