Posted on 02/16/2017 11:05:39 AM PST by jazusamo
Senate Democrats on Thursday slammed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for not delaying a vote on President Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and some colleagues have repeatedly asked McConnell to delay the vote to confirm Scott Pruitt, currently Oklahoma’s attorney general, while Democrats and a liberal group wait for a public records requested more than two years ago.
McConnell declined, Carper said, and the Senate voted 54-46 on Thursday — with all Republicans and two Democrats supporting — to move forward on Pruitt and line up a vote for Friday.
“In my gut, I feel that these emails — the nature of these emails and the entities with whom they were sent and received — will help us understand the truth,” Carper told reporters Thursday in renewing his call for a delay shortly after debate formally started on Pruitt on the Senate floor.
“My fear is that a number of members, especially on the other side, would be put in a very bad position, asked to vote for a nominee that they otherwise would not have supported, had they known the truth,” he said.
Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has pushed back against Democrats’ delay requests, saying Pruitt has answered more questions than any EPA administrator nominee before.
A judge in Oklahoma is holding an emergency hearing later Thursday on a lawsuit the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) filed last week to force Pruitt’s office to comply with their request.
The liberal group had sought, under Oklahoma’s state records law, copies of emails between Pruitt’s staff and representatives of various fossil fuel and conservative interests.
Pruitt’s office released hundreds of pages of documents last week, but CMD maintains that thousands of emails were left out.
Democrats said the decision to carry on with the Pruitt vote shows that the GOP is prioritizing getting Trump’s cabinet confirmed over transparency concerns.
“Clearly, this is an epic ram-job,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said.
He said Republicans “could not get enough” of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the emails of various federal employees they had investigated.
“But now, suddenly, emails between a nominee’s office and the major players in the industry that he will be regulating as EPA administrator, all they do is look at the ceiling tiles,” he added.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Pruitt’s refusal to give the Democrats the emails at issue is unprecedented.
“What Scott Pruitt said to our committee was ‘go FOIA yourself,’ ” Markey joked.
Two Democrats, Sens.Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), both say they will vote for Pruitt, and Republican Sen. Susan Collins(Maine) plans to vote against him, giving him more than the 51 votes needed for confirmation.
Yep, your turn to bend over and grab your ankles for a change.
I think Rush said recently that Trump's cabinet appointments have already been delayed than at any time in history.
Obama's lousy, crooked appointments were rushed through without any effort to examine them.
You both nailed it. LOL!
They must be confusing TurtleMcConnell with NewMcConnell.
Happy to see the GOP leader of the Senate actually LEADING.
Keep it up Mitch!
So true, The RATS are dragging President Trump’s nominee confirmations out with every trick in the book while 0bama’s pathetic nominees breezed through.
And you want to delay hoping they'll show up in the next couple of weeks?
The stupid is strong with this one...
It sounds like Sheldon is an “expert” on ram-jobs.
Good. The republicans have been entirely too accommodating to the unhinged leftist scumbag party. The republicans need to start acting like they won the election.
After 8+ years of getting epically rammed, it's about time that the roles are reversed. It's going to take some strong efforts to undo all the damage that the dems have done to this country.
Go Mitch!
Elected Dems: “We’re furious with you for not letting us sabotage this administration! We want to destroy everything in this country because we didn’t get our way. We only represent our insane activists, not the citizenry.” {{{foot stomp}}}
STAY STRONG, McTurtle.
“They must be confusing TurtleMcConnell with NewMcConnell.
Happy to see the GOP leader of the Senate actually LEADING.”
I suspect that the only difference between the old and the new is the fact that he now has a Conservative POTUS that will sign what he gets passed.
‘Republicans ‘could not get enough’ of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the emails of various federal employees that they had investigated’
But those people had likely BROKEN THE LAW. The moral equivalency arguments by Dems are so specious. But their Pravda/Media will print whatever they say, with all their false implications, and the LIVs will eat it up. Disgusting.
I “blast” DIMs for being such obstructive lunatics.
The Dims want to delay the vote until March of 2021 ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.