Senate Demos threaten to put off Leavitt vote

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats threatened to delay and possibly boycott a planned Senate committee vote today on Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt's nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

The committee's eight Democrats, along with Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., complained Tuesday that they needed at least two more weeks to consider Leavitt's written explanations of his views, some of which they felt were incomplete.

"As is Senate custom, committee members expect full responses to their questions," they wrote in a letter to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which is considering the nomination.

Attempts to get a response from Inhofe's office Tuesday night were unsuccessful.

If Inhofe does not agree to put off the vote, Senate Democrats might boycott the meeting to prevent a vote from being held, said a congressional source speaking on condition of anonymity.

Under Senate rules, 10 members of the 19-member committee must be present to have a vote and two of them must be from the minority.

The letter requesting the delay was signed by Jeffords and Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Harry Reid of Nevada, Bob Graham of Florida, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Barbara Boxer of California, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Thomas Carper of Delaware and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Even if the nomination emerges from the committee, Clinton said Tuesday she still will block Leavitt's nomination from being taken up by the full Senate unless the White House reveals who directed EPA to prematurely assure New Yorkers that air pollution from the World Trade Center rubble posed no health threat.

Clinton, who met Tuesday with James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, to discuss the Leavitt nomination, said it was her "strong belief that we must have a bond of trust between our government and our citizens when it comes to such critical issues as the threat of terrorism and the health and safety consequences."

Lieberman and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., also have said they had put a "hold" on the Leavitt nomination.

Despite their opposition to President Bush's environmental policies, Jeffords and several of the committee's Democrats have indicated they eventually will support Bush's choice of Leavitt, a three-term governor and former chairman of the National Governors Association, to succeed former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman as EPA administrator.