Lieberman takes a hit on environment & integrity

http://www.hillnews.com/news/102203/lieberman.aspx

<snip>
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) has a problem with Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R), President Bush’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

But the committee chairman charged with steering Leavitt’s nomination through the Senate has a problem with Lieberman.

“He doesn’t really know what’s going on in the committee,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) charged. “He’s out there running for president.

“I think it’s outrageous for Senator Lieberman . He won’t even come to our hearings, let alone the confirmation hearing.

“That Senator Lieberman wouldn’t even meet with him and then go out and condemn him is just unconscionable. That is so uncharacteristic of the image he had before race.”

Of 27 meetings that have taken place this year before both the full committee and subcommittees Lieberman sits on, the presidential candidate has attended just two.
Notably, committee aides say, Lieberman has skipped all seven of the panel’s legislative markups, where the nuts and bolts of bill writing is done.

Additionally, the Republican National Committee reports on its website that Lieberman has missed 20 environmental votes in the Senate, including legislation on ethanol, drought relief and nuclear power plants.
</snip>

Lieberman has probably the strongest environmental record of all the Democratic presidential candidates. I hope there's more fluff than substance in this report, but it doesn't sound good. I'm not impressed when senators miss important sessions and votes because they are campaigning. (I was wondering why Edwards didn't vote in yesterday's abortion-procedure ban vote yesterday, for example.)

s_m

His numbers don't look promising, I'm not seeing that he offers anything new on a crowded stage, and this looks bad for the Dem cause.

that. He just doesn't seem to get the message, and he's probably having too much fun bashing Dems anyway.

he has absolutely no campaign strategy other than to repeatedly attack whoever the front runner is. He needs to quit and go back to the Senate where he can make better use of his time and stop wasting ours.

Joe has been a good Senator. He really has, though his conservative slant means he is more likely to support a Republican bill than a Democratic bill, he has been a nice stabilizing force in the Senate.

He needs to stay in the Senate. He could do more good for the Democratic party right now but dropping out of the race. I never advocated anyone leaving before the primaries, so I am only half-heartedly saying this now, but ideally he will step away from the campaign after South Carolina.

attacking him for opposing Bush's EPA nominee is misguided, at best.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., became the fifth Senate Democrat with plans to hold Leavitt's nomination from coming to a full floor vote until getting satisfactory answers or commitments on specific environmental issues from the White House.
"The unfortunate truth is that it doesn't matter who heads the EPA under this administration, because they will be nothing more than another pawn for the corporate polluters who control the White House's agenda," Kerry said in a statement posted on his Senate Web site Wednesday. "Governor Leavitt may eventually be approved by the Senate, but I cannot in good conscience allow that process to even move forward without getting the answers that the people of Fairhaven, Mass., New York City and communities across the nation deserve."
Kerry said he wants to know why the EPA is delaying the Superfund cleanup of an old nail and tack manufacturing plant in Fairhaven that is contaminated with PCBs, cyanide, pesticides and other toxins. The cleanup began under the Clinton administration but has received no federal funds during the past two years, said Kerry.
Kerry is also joining Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., in demanding more information from the White House on whether it pressured EPA to knowingly mislead the public on the dangers to New York City residents from airborne contaminants at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as claimed in a new internal investigative report.
Clinton has said she will hold Leavitt's nomination until she gets satisfactory answers from the Bush administration on the air quality announcements. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday that he will block Leavitt's nomination from the floor until a nuclear waste expert on his staff is nominated by the president to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., said last week that he will hold back the Leavitt confirmation vote until EPA complies with his year-old request to study human health effects of the Bush administration's new clean-air regulations. Lieberman has vowed to block the nomination until he is given assurances that Leavitt will be "an independent advocate for protecting the environment."
<snip>
Although five holds out of 100 Senate members seems a small number, there is a chance more Democrats will join in blocking the Leavitt nomination as a protest of both the Bush environmental agenda and the fast-track way the GOP majority conducted the Leavitt confirmation process. Several Democrats on the Senate Environment Committee complained that the panel chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., had not allowed enough time in Tuesday's hearing for detailed questions, with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., charging that Inhofe had given Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, 20 minutes to deliver a laudatory introduction of Leavitt while limiting Democrats' critical questions to five minutes each.
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Sep/09252003/utah/95647.asp

and his environmental record has been excellent. That's why the environmentalists would support him before Howard Yucca Mountain Dean.

"Of the possible candidates with Capitol Hill voting records to scrutinize, Kerry has the highest lifetime League of Conservation Voters scorecard tally at 96 percent."

http://www.lcv.org/News/News.cfm?ID=1610&c=27

Kucinich and Lieberman I think are solid too. I am very impressed with that on Kerry.

I'm ashamed to see it posted here. Joe doesn't need to be at the hearing to know about Leavitt, his non-responses, and general unfitness for the position. And it is equally annoying when people expect someone to campaign for the Presidency and make every meeting and vote at the same time. It's not realistic and sounds to me like an excuse to attack somebody rather than a genuine reason to withhold support.