Senate panel approves Trump EPA, nuke agency nominees
A Senate committee on Wednesday cleared three Trump administration nominees to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), sending them to the floor for consideration.
The Environment and Public Works Committee approved Annie Caputo and David Wright to serve as members of the NRC on Wednesday. If they are confirmed by the full Senate, the NRC would have a full slate of five members.
Caputo is a senior adviser to Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and a former official at Exelon Corp., which operates more nuclear plants than any other U.S. company. The committee cleared her nomination on a bipartisan 15-6 vote. [This means that four Democratic members of the EPW Committee voted in favor of Caputo's confirmation, while all Republican members did so as well.]
Wright is a former South Carolina Public Service Commission member. The committee approved his nomination on a 12-9 vote. [The Hill's vote count here appears to be in error. Barrasso's own press release actually reported the vote as 11 to 10. This means that all Republican members voted in favor of Wright's confirmation, while all Democratic members voted against. So far, Beyond Nuclear can confirm that Sen. Harris (D-CA) voted against both nominees. The committee clerk has not posted the vote counts, so we cannot list which of the four Democrats voted in favor of Caputo's nomination, above. As soon as the information becomes available, we will post it here.]
Beyond Nuclear issued a media statement on the day of the June 13th EPW Committee confirmation hearing, which was also delivered to EPW Committee members' offices, as well as other U.S. Senate offices. The statement urged members of the committee and the Senate to oppose all three NRC nominations, including Kristine Svinicki for NRC Chairman, and Caputo and Wright for NRC Commissioners.
Beyond Nuclear also sent letters to EPW Committee members, urging no votes against both Caputo's and Wright's confirmation, on the eve of the business meeting vote. Here for example is a copy of Beyond Nuclear's letter to U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat-New York).
Caputo's and Wright's nominations now move to the full Senate floor for up or down votes.
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See the minutes taken from the business meeting, for the roll call votes re: Caputo's and Wright's nominations. See pages 11 to 18 of 22.
There, the 15 yes votes, and 6 no votes, re: Caputo's confirmation are recorded. The yes votes include: Barasso, Inhofe, Booker, Boozman, Capito, Cardin, Duckworth, Ernst, Fischer, Moran, Rounds, Shelby, Sullivan, Whitehouse, and Wicker. The no votes include: Carper, Gillibrand, Harris, Markey, Merkley, and Sanders.
Also, the minutes record a 12 to 9 vote in favor of Wright's confirmation (the 11 to 10 vote reported in Barasso's press release above seems to be accurate, however, when you count up the yes's versus no's; the vote went along party lines, with all Repubicans voting in favor of Wright's confirmation, and all Democrats voting against). The 11 Republican yes votes for Wright's confirmation include: Barasso, Inhofe, Boozman, Capito, Ernst, Fischer, Moran, Rounds, Shelby, Sullivan, Wicker. The 10 Democratic no votes by Democrats include: Booker, Cardin, Carper, Duckworth, Gillibrand, Harris, Markey, Merkley, Sanders, Whitehouse.