"Trump's EPA Pick Vote Delayed In Boycott By Senate Democrats"

"Republican U.S. senators on Wednesday delayed a committee vote on President Donald Trump's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency after the panel's Democrats boycotted the meeting, saying that nominee Scott Pruitt doubts the science of climate change.

The boycott in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee delayed the transition to a new administrator for the agency. Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat, said he could not support Pruitt, a Republican and the attorney general of Oklahoma, for a public health position because he "denies the sum of empirical science and the urgency to act on climate change."

At a committee confirmation hearing last month Pruitt, who has sued the agency he intends to run more than a dozen times on behalf of the oil-drilling state Oklahoma, expressed doubt about climate change science."

Timothy Gardner reports for Reuters February 1, 2017.

SEE ALSO:

EPA: Dems Boycott Committee Vote On Pruitt" (Greenwire)

"Democrats boycott controversial EPA nominee Scott Pruitt’s committee confirmation vote" (Washington Post)