WASHINGTON – Overcoming opposition from Democratic critics of President Bush’s environmental policies, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt was confirmed by the Senate today as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Leavitt, 52, a Republican serving his third term as Utah’s chief executive, will take over the Cabinet-level agency with more than 18,000 employees. He replaces Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor who stepped down from the post June 27.
A number of Democratic senators, including Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, and three Democratic presidential contenders, had delayed approval by using a Senate rule that allowed them to place holds on the nomination.
They stopped the hold after it became clear that Senate Republicans could muster easily the 60 votes needed to end the delaying tactics, which were to protest Bush administration environmental policies.
In nominating Leavitt, Bush said the Utah governor – a conservative Republican with whom the president was politically close when he served as governor of Texas – shares his philosophy of giving state and local governments more flexibility in meeting environmental standards. He said the new EPA chief would reject “the old ways of command and control from above.”
But environmental groups assailed Leavitt’s appointment, and Senate Democrats used his nomination to demand more information from the Bush administration about its environmental policies.
Leavitt's confirmation would also give Utah its first woman governor – Lt. Gov. Olene Walker, 72, a long-time state GOP figure and grandmother of 25, who will take over as governor.
Leavitt’s decision to accept the EPA appointment instead of running for a fourth term next year also opens up the governor's race in Utah, a Republican bastion.
Source: CNN