Opinion: Senate blocks first Obama nominee, an enviro; Al Franken to the rescue?

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For the first time since Barack Obama took office, the Senate today blocked one of his nominees.

No one doubts that David Hayes, an environmental lawyer who served as deputy Interior secretary in the Clinton administration and has been nominated to fill the same slot for Team Obama, is eminently qualified for the post. With 30 years of experience in natural resources, Hayes knows how to run the department of 67,000 employees with an annual budget of $16 billion.

And unlike former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who had to withdraw his nomination for Health and Human Services secretary, Hayes has, as far as anyone knows, paid all his taxes.

But Republicans voted in lockstep to block the nomination. Led by Utah’s Sen. Robert F. Bennett, who is angry that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 oil and gas leases in his home state, they invoked filibuster. Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski was another opponent. The top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, she wrote to Salazar last week objecting to his decision to place a 180-day hold on a Bush-era plan for oil and gas exploration on the nation’s outer continental shelf.

Illinois Democrat Sen. Richard J. Durbin called Republicans ‘the party of no’ and accused them of stalling perfectly qualified nominees just to slow the Obama reversal of George W. Bush‘s policies. ‘Apparently Republicans in the Senate do not believe President Obama has a mandate to run this country,’ he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said he will return the Hayes nomination to the floor as soon as Democrat Al Franken wins a court fight against Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota’s long-running political soap opera, otherwise known as the 2008 senatorial campaign.

‘David Hayes will be confirmed. If I have to wait till Al Franken comes, we’re going to confirm him,’ he said.

-- Johanna Neuman

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