WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has agreed to nominate a member of Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid's staff to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in return for Reid's lifting his holds on dozens of White House nominees, including Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, tapped to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
The deal reduces to four the number of announced holds on Leavitt's EPA nomination on the Senate floor, assuming Leavitt can clear next week's scheduled vote by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Democrats on the committee boycotted a vote on the Leavitt nomination Oct. 1 to force a two-week delay after complaining Leavitt didn't adequately answer dozens of written questions.
According to a staff member in Reid's office, the White House was in talks last week with the senator in the hope he would release the holds he had placed on all nonmilitary executive branch appointees. Reid threw up the roadblocks to protest the White House's previous refusal to nominate his congressional aide, Gregory Jaczko, to the five-year term on the federal board that oversees the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada. Reid wanted Jaczko, considered an expert in nuclear waste issues, to be appointed to an NRC seat normally held by a Democrat.
“The Democrats put forward their nominee, which was Dr. Jaczko, and the White House blocked that nomination, so now that the administration has agreed to nominate Dr. Jaczko, Sen. Reid has agreed to release all his executive branch holds,” said the staff member.
The deal lifts one hurdle to Leavitt's confirmation, a blockade that Reid said had pained him because of his long association with the Leavitt family. At Leavitt's confirmation hearing Sept. 23, Reid said while the Bush administration's environmental record is “awful,” he wished Leavitt well in what is generally described as a no-win job.
Four other Democrats have pending holds on Leavitt's confirmation vote: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina.
The White House has been in negotiations with Clinton in an effort to resolve her concerns about administration interference in public notifications of airborne hazards to New Yorkers after the destruction of the World Trade Center. Even if the administration is successful in cutting a deal with Clinton to lift her hold on Leavitt, strategists familiar with the nomination process say it may be impossible to appease Lieberman, Kerry and Edwards, all of whom are seeking their party's nomination for president in 2004.
Source: Salt Lake Tribune