John McCain Holds Up Interior

By Joan McCarter, 7-17-09

Senate rules allow a single Senator to anonymously block the confirmation of Presidential appointments, for any reason. At issue is mining. This time, the reason is mining. McCain is blocking Bob Abbey, the nominee to be the Bureau of Land Management administrator, and Wilma Lewis, the nominee for Interior’s assistant secretary for land and minerals until the administration weighs in on one of his legislative priorities. The problem is, it’s gumming up the works at Interior.

During a Senate hearing today on hardrock mining, Salazar said he was unable to provide specific answers about the Obama administration’s position on different kinds of mining royalties.

“We don’t have the capacity at this point in time, frankly, to provide those answers, because I don’t have the leadership yet,” Salazar told reporters after the hearing. “So yes, it will be a detriment at this point in time” not having Abbey and Lewis.

“We frankly can’t go about doing our job if we don’t have our people in place,” he said.

The legislation in question creates allows a land swap of about 2,400 acres of land in the Tonto National Forest with abpit 5,500 acres of environmentally sensitive land held by the mining company Resolution Copper. The Bush administration was all for it, the Obama administration apparently wants to slow the process down to allow for the kind of environmental impact study that is supposed to happen with these proposals, but was generally bypassed by the previous administration.

“For the last three Congresses you supported this, now there a new administration and you don’t,” McCain told federal officials. “That’s disgraceful.”

Joel Holtrop, deputy chief of the National Forest System and Ned Farquhar, deputy assistant secretary of land and minerals management at the Interior Department, stopped short of saying the administration opposes the land exchange.

Instead, both men said their agencies have concerns about the project’s potential impact on the environment and on lands with cultural value to Native American tribes. They said the administration needs more time to evaluate the project, although they did not specify how much time.

Those concerns seem valid, particularly since the 2,400 acres includes some land that the Zuni people consider sacred. A second concern is the safety of the groundwater, which supplies some of the drinking water for the area and even for Phoenix. While the net effect seems positive--lots of jobs for the area, a swap that brings many more acres into protection, allowing time for a real evaluation of the proposal just makes sense, and could avoid potential hassles--like lawsuits that could arise to hold up the swap--down the road.

And in the meantime, the administration can’t move forward on policy-making on mining issues.

To be fair, McCain isn’t the only Senator throwing his weight around to hold up key appointments in the new administration.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) has placed a hold on Robert Perciasepe, nominated to be the Environmental Protection Agency’s second in command, because “he is dissatisfied” with the EPA finding that clean energy legislation would only cost American households a postage stamp a day.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has placed a hold on Cass Sunstein, nominated to be the director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, on concerns from the agriculture industry about his opinions on animal welfare.

This happens regularly on both sides of the aisle--Democrats help up a handful of Bush nominees as well. It’s one of the perks of being a Senator--you can hold up the work of the administration and at the same time get to criticize it for not getting its work done.