Posted on 09/18/2001 5:14:42 AM PDT by anniegetyourgun
Faced with strong opposition from majority Democrats and a committee chairman promising to give him a hard time, President Bush's nominee to head enforcement at the Environment Protection Agency has withdrawn his name.
"It is clear to me ... that my nomination will not be considered by the U.S. Senate in a timely manner," Donald Schregardus said in a letter Monday to Bush.
Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, had promised to spend months scrutinizing Schregardus' record as head of Ohio's EPA before allowing a Senate vote on the nomination.
Schregardus said in his letter that he remains proud of his record, which included 17 years with the federal EPA and eight years as director of the Ohio's EPA.
White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said Monday that Schregardus had not been asked by the administration to withdraw his name.
The Senate panel Jeffords chairs approved Schregardus' nomination to be EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance on Aug. 1, with dissenting votes from four Democrats.
A month later, EPA released a report faulting the Ohio agency when it was headed by Schregardus for not implementing part of a federal acid rain program that would have required power plants in the state to spend millions of dollars on new pollutant abating technology.
Some Senate Democrats and environmental groups seized on the report as ammunition in their campaign to defeat Schregardus' nomination.
Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., had said they would block a vote by the full Senate on Schregardus. They cited his efforts to win the dismissal of lawsuits by several states to force power plants to reduce pollutants blamed for acid rain in the Northeast.
OR, they could always get themselves a decent spokesperson and fight the 'rat's' with the TRUTH!
The Bush Administration should start gutting the agency of liberal leaning administrators, and force the Democrats into submission.
It will not cause me to shed tears if money for the EPA gets shifted right now for Defense and work against terrorism -- things that should be priorities.
That says it all. I hope the people throw this @sshole out of office. But, I'm not holding out much hope. These are the same moronic voters that elected a self-described socialist as their at-large representative.
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.