Why EPA Suddenly Doesn’t Have Anyone Running The Office That Protects Our Waterways
BY JEFF SPROSS
Starting Friday, there is no one in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water.
As E&E News reports, the office has actually gone without a confirmed head since February 2011. In the interim, Assistant Administrator Nancy Stoner has served as acting head. But on Friday, she hit the legal limit on how long an unconfirmed leader can hold an office. The Obama Administration’s nominee to head the office is Ken Kopocis — a former Capitol Hill staffer personally respected by both sides — and has been in limbo for 1,148 days and counting.
A Senate rule change in November now allows most of the executive branch’s agency and judicial nominees to face a simple majority vote rather than the filibuster-enforced 60-vote supermajority. However, the Senate remains a complex body where any legislator has enormous capacity to slow things down, and Senate Democrats claim Republicans have relied on a number of delaying tactics since November to keep Kopocis from receiving a vote.
“We don’t seem to be able to move him quickly because the Republicans are being very difficult,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), told E&E News. The Republican countercharge is that a number of Democrats are skittish about voting for Kopocis, meaning he may not have the numbers for a simple majority confirmation.
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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/01/3466785/epa-water-kopocis-delayed/
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