Obama enviro appointees face hearing

by Jim Tankersley

A pair of President-elect Barack Obama's key environmental appointees are appearing before a Senate panel this morning - and perhaps set to shed light on the details of some of the new administration's plans to combat global warming.

We expect to hear questions this morning about if and how Lisa Jackson, the former top environmental official in New Jersey now nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency, plans to use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions. We expect to hear questions about the administration's broader climate-change plans for Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley, nominated to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee and a vocal critic of proposed global warming efforts, told Jackson and Brown in his opening statement that in coming weeks he will push aggressively to learn more about the administration's plans for the Clean Air Act and other methods to regulate emissions.

"I have serious concerns about the timing and troubling implications that further regulation could have on our already fragile economy," Inhofe said in remarks prepared for delivery.

But other early indications - from Jackson and Sutley's prepared statements, and from the opening remarks by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs committee - are that a more fundamental issue could dominate this hearing: a repudiation of President Bush's environmental policies and the promise of a sea change under Obama.

"EPA has hurt the American people, made them less safe, these last 8 years," Boxer said. A moment later, she added: "I am looking for a renewed commitment to EPA's mission. Nothing more, nothing less."

In a pointed jab at Bush, both Jackson and Sutley pledged in their prepared opening statements to put science over politics in federal environmental policy-making. Jackson, a longtime EPA staff member before she moved to state government, promised in her statement that "if I am confirmed, political appointees will not compromise the integrity of EPA's technical experts to advance particular regulatory outcomes."

Sutley also promised to put science first in her prepared remarks. She echoed Obama's statements that "a strong, sustainable economy and a healthy environment can and must go hand in hand." And she pledged to fight global warming and boost clean energy.

Committee members range widely on their views about warming, the EPA and the appropriate role of the federal government in environmental policy. That should make for some spirited questioning. Stay tuned.