Environmental Politics

Senators Clinton and Lieberman are playing politics with the Environmental Protection Agency. While, ultimately, it might be best if the EPA were never to get a new director, the hold on the nomination of Utah's governor, Michael Leavitt, is just the kind of maneuvering the Democrats would decry were it being perpetrated by a small band of Republicans. While Democratic senators on the Committee on Environment and Public Works such as Senators Wyden and Graham and the Republican turncoat, James Jeffords, voted yesterday to report Mr. Leavitt's nomination to the Senate floor, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Lieberman voted no.

"I want to say that I have high personal regard for Governor Leavitt," Mrs. Clinton said. "I communicated that to him privately, and I want to say it publicly." But then she got to the heart of the matter: "I wrote to President Bush on August 26 along with Senator Lieberman. We asked the president to address several issues raised by the EPA [inspector general] about the administration's response in New York to the collapse of the World Trade Center.… The IG found that the White House modified several EPA press releases about air quality in lower Manhattan in a way that made them more reassuring than was warranted by the data available at the time." Mr. Lieberman was more oblique, simply saying, "this White House has made clear that it will dictate the content of the EPA's statements and actions, even if they run contrary to the facts."

It is worth noting that those threatening to hold up the nomination are scheming in presidential politics. Among Democratic presidential candidates, Mr. Lieberman is joined by Senators Kerry and Edwards in vowing to hold up the nomination. Mrs. Clinton, a non-declared presidential candidate, is joined only by Senator Lautenberg. It is also worth noting that even the EPA inspector general's report, on which Mrs. Clinton relies, states that, "Because of numerous uncertainties — including the extent of the public's exposure and a lack of health-based benchmarks — a definitive answer to whether the air was safe to breathe may not be settled for years to come."

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Lieberman, as well as Messrs. Kerry and Graham, may paint themselves as moderates. But they find themselves to the left of Mr. Wyden, who has an 87% positive rating from the liberal League of Conservation Voters. Mr. Leavitt, outside of these extremists, is supported widely on both sides of the aisle — five crossed party lines in committee to support him. It's something to keep in mind over the next year, as the Democrats try to portray themselves as within the mainstream. They may profess to care about the work done by the EPA, but they are willing to leave the agency headless to score cheap political points against Mr. Bush.