Gina McCarthy's nomination to lead the EPA probably won't reach the Senate floor until July, and maybe between now and then, her Republican critics can up with better excuses to oppose her nomination than this.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he still couldn't support President Obama's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because she is "stonewalling."
"The job of EPA administrator has the potential to impact the life of every American in both positive and negative ways -- and so I believe she has to be as forthcoming as possible in answering questions," Sessions said Thursday. "To date, she has not provided responsive answers to many of the requests submitted by our ranking member, Sen. [David] Vitter (R-La.), or many of my questions."
The Alabama Republican added that he and his GOP colleagues have made "reasonable requests."
I suppose what is and isn't "reasonable" is a subjective matter, but by any fair standard, Sessions' complaint is hard to take seriously.
As we discussed several weeks ago, BuzzFeed ran an interesting report on the number of questions Senate Republicans have asked McCarthy as part of her confirmation process. How ridiculous has it been? Combine all of the questions submitted for the record by Senate Republicans for the three previous EPA directors. Then double that number. Then double that number again. It still doesn't come close to the 1,079 questions the Senate GOP has submitted to Gina McCarthy.
Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) alone has asked 411 written questions, with 242 subparts. McCarthy answered all of them.
"Reasonable requests?" I don't think so.
In the meantime, an anti-EPA think tank called the Competitive Enterprise Institute has filed a lawsuit related to McCarthy's nomination. Apparently, during her confirmation hearing, McCarthy sent some text messages, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute is going to court, demanding to know what she said to whom. Why? Because maybe the nominee said something the right can use against her.
Don't be too surprised if the McCarthy pushback helps Senate Democrats make the case for the nuclear option this summer.