WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Although a Senate committee approved the nomination of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, President Bush's choice to head the agency still faces a tough battle ahead that signals Democratic hopes to make the environment a key election issue next year.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee vote had been delayed from Oct. 1 when committee Democrats staged a protest by not showing up for a scheduled vote on the nomination, and Leavitt now faces several Democrats vowing to block his nomination from being voted on by the entire Senate.
The Democrats said their aim is to call attention to the Bush administration's environmental policies and the White House's unwillingness to provide information about controversial practices and polices.
Senate committee Democrats -- including Sen. Hillary Clinton, R-N.Y. -- and allies like environment committee ranking member Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., say that they have no problem with the nominee, but that the real issue is the Bush administration's refusal to answer questions about how the EPA evaluated the environmental risks at the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks or on its clean air initiative. Clinton has said that her concerns are not with Leavitt, but that White House political officials, not EPA officers, are setting Bush administration environmental policies.
Clinton is one of numerous Democrats that have placed a hold on the Leavitt nomination, a list that includes two presidential candidates -- Sens. John Edwards, D-N.C., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. -- along with Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
Because of this the Bush administration is far from getting a win on the Leavitt nomination.
Committee Republicans insist that the move to block the nominee and related attacks on the Bush administration's environmental record are, in the words of Senate environment committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., "baseless." They contend that Democrats are only politicizing nomination to make the environment a 2004 election issue.
"They clearly see a weakness here and are exploiting it," one senior Republican Senate aide told United Press International.
There is much evidence that Bush's EPA has been a boon to industries -- like electricity producers -- who spent eight years under the Clinton administration fighting increased regulatory enforcement and tightening restrictions on their practices.
Clinton's stated concerns about the Bush environmental record are even shared by Democrats who approved Leavitt's nomination out of committee.
Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said at Wednesday's hearing on the nominee that, while Leavitt is a good candidate for the job, Wyden is at odds with Bush administration policies.
"There are monumental gaps between the bipartisan approach that Mike Leavitt took when he was governor of Utah and this administration," said Wyden.
Wyden went on to call Bush's term a 30-month holiday for polluters where EPA enforcement has basically been abandoned, adding that the administration's own reports demonstrate this belief.
Nevertheless, Wyden approved the nominee, noting that his conversations with Leavitt convinced him that he agrees that tough, no-nonsense enforcement of the nation's environmental laws is important.
If that translates into the way the Leavitt handles the jobs, it could mean a significant change at the agency. The term of the previous EPA administrator -- Christine Todd Whitman -- is largely considered a disaster by critics and was marked only by her powerlessness in moving ahead with any major policies not put into play by the White House itself.
While Senate Democrats may have some genuine concerns about the Bush administration's environmental polices, there is a clear political element in their actions on Leavitt's nomination that smacks of both their powerlessness to control this administration and craving for regained control of the White House.
Environmental policy may yet prove to be key to that effort.
Environmental policy is the type of issue that voters largely ignore when the economy is going well and they feel safe -- as they did in the 2000 presidential race -- and focus on when things are down.
With the economy apparently making a slow rebound that has not yet made itself detectable to voters, it is possible there could not be a large enough recovery in the job market for voters to take notice in time for the election.
The small upswings in economic indicators may also prove temporary.
Independent pollster John Zogby told UPI that green issues are not getting much attention at the present time, but could rear their head as an important concern come November 2004.
"It is one of those issue that if thing are going well (economically and politically), it is not an issue," said Zogby. "But if there is again a cataclysmic event (like a terrorist attack or bad economic new) or a mistake, it is going to erupt," he said.
In addition some of Bush's key environmental decisions -- like lowering carbon dioxide emissions for electrical power plants -- can hurt him with badly needed swing voters and galvanize the Democratic base.
Issues such as reversing Clinton-era proposals for lowering the level of allowable arsenic in drinking water, reversing U.S. support for the Kyoto global warming treaty, or even attempting allow the drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife refuge can serve to hurt him with voters.
"That (the arsenic issue) just alienated centrist swing voters like soccer moms who said they didn't know there was arsenic in the water," said Zogby.
