Two of President Donald Trump’s picks for top EPA posts cleared committee along party-line votes Thursday afternoon, but only after the top Democrat questioned the truthfulness of one of the candidates.
By identical 10-9 margins, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee advanced David Fotouhi to become EPA’s deputy administrator and Aaron Szabo to head the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation. Both are now in line to win final Senate confirmation in the coming weeks.
“I am certainly in favor of them,” Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said Thursday. “They are going to be filling important roles at the EPA, and I look forward to their service.”
The brief markup came barely a week after the committee held a joint hearing for the two and one day after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin — who had projected a moderate image during his EPW confirmation hearing — trumpeted plans for an unprecedented battery of rollbacks targeting climate, water and air pollution rules.
