Republicans Get All Pissy As Democratic Senators Boycott Pruitt's Committee Hearing

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Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) called the boycott "a senatorial temper tantrum." "Cease the temper tantrum. Let's get back to work," Sullivan said. Sullivan said he noticed Democratic members of the panel were outside the hearing room, meandering in the hallway. "It is not like they're busy," said Sullivan, calling it "a little embarrassing."

Committee Democrats huddled separately before the markup, then walked as a group with ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) to a news conference down the hall. "We're going to the gym," Carper joked as they passed the committee hearing room. Speaking to reporters, Carper noted that Trump "degraded" EPA on the campaign trail. "He said a lot of things last year. The question is, did he mean it? And I think the answer that we got was yes, he did mean it, when he nominated Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA," he said, reiterating that Pruitt had not fully complied with Democrats' information requests.

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Pruitt produced "zero" information on requests about the "dark money operation" he ran, while also rebuffing Democrats' requests to produce 3,000 emails and other contacts with fossil fuel interests. "We are being totally stonewalled on two very reasonable, very specific factual requests that any, any nominee ought to produce," he told reporters. "And I can assure you that if the shoe were on the other foot, the Republicans would be howling about the emails. Remember, they've been interested in emails in astonishing ways before, but suddenly when it's emails to the fossil fuel industry, interest evaporates."

Noting that Pruitt told Democrats to seek his emails under an open records law that has a two-year backlog in the state, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Pruitt's message is "go FOIA yourself." He also lambasted Pruitt for refusing to fully recuse himself from the eight open lawsuits he filed against EPA as Oklahoma attorney general. "For those cases, he could become the plaintiff, the defendant, the judge and the jury," he said. "That is just unacceptable. It is a fundamental conflict of interest."

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http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060049376