Week ahead: Trump EPA pick faces fiery nomination hearing

Senators will consider three of President-elect Donald Trump’s key energy-related Cabinet appointees in the week ahead, with only days left before he moves into the White House.

To kick off the proceedings, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hear from Interior Secretary nominee Ryan Zinke on Tuesday. 

A Republican congressman from Montana, Zinke is unlikely to run into the types of political fights already raging over other Trump nominees. 

But his confirmation hearing is likely to give Democrats the chance to probe Zinke’s — and Trump’s — plan of attack on several Obama-era initiatives, namely a review of the federal coal program. 

{mosads}

Interior last year paused federal lease sales for coal mining while it assessed the program, which accounts for 40 percent of the coal mined in the U.S. 

On Wednesday, Obama officials recommended raising the royalty rates on public land coal mining, a decision slammed by some western Republicans. 

Zinke is likely to end the leasing moratorium: both he and Trump have supported doing so. Senators are also likely to probe how he approaches issues like mining, drilling and fracking on public land, conservation efforts, the National Parks Service and running a 70,000-employee, $12 billion department. 

The fireworks will start on Wednesday when Environmental Protection Agency nominee Scott Pruitt goes before the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Environmentalists and many Democrats detest Pruitt’s nomination to lead the EPA, calling him a climate denier for doubting the scientific consensus on climate change and lambasting his lengthy career suing the EPA as attorney general of Oklahoma. 

Senate Democrats say they will question Pruitt’s ties to the oil industry when he testifies on Wednesday, as well as probe how he would lead a department he has often taken to court, as well as what type of science he would rely on when forging federal environmental regulations.

Republicans by and large support Pruitt, as do industry groups that have long fought the EPA over its regulations under Obama. They say Pruitt will have a better handle on environmental law and rein in a department whose every regulation, it seems, ends up in court.

Pruitt is easily the most controversial environment-related Trump nominee, and his hearing on Wednesday is certain to lay out the partisan divide over his nomination.

Rick Perry gets his shot in the spotlight on Thursday when he testifies before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee about his nomination to lead the Energy Department. 

Perry will face questions on his oversight of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the Energy Department’s single biggest responsibility. But Democrats are also likely to prod him on the agency’s climate change and clean energy agenda, both of which expanded under Obama, as well as a Trump team questionnaire, revealed in December, seeking names of employees involved in climate work. 

Perry’s infamous 2011 “oops” gaffe — when he forgot, during a Republican primary debate, that the Energy Department was a federal agency he would abolish as president — will certainly come up, as well. 

Even so, like Zinke, Perry’s nomination isn’t expected to be especially controversial.

Trump will be inaugurated on Friday, and while his transition team has not outlined exactly what he’ll do on day one, keep an eye out for environment-related announcements from the new White House. 

RECENT STORIES 

-Obama won’t weaken car emissions standards 

-Senators wrestle with whether to back Tillerson 

-Obama creates, expands national monuments 

-EPA: Fiat Chrysler cheated federal emissions testing 

–Rocky start for Trump’s State Department nominee 

-Interior proposes raising royalty rates on federal coal mining 

-W.Va. attorney general may challenge Manchin 

-GOP chairman uses House floor speech to decry NYT climate column as ‘fake news’ 

-Obama: Clean energy trend ‘irreversible’