Bush backs shunned nominees

According to industry lobbyists and Republican aides in Congress, Bush intends to skirt the Senate approval process if necessary by making recess appointments to put the three nominees in the posts.

All three have ties to industries that face costly Environmental Protection Agency restrictions, and all three have previously bypassed or questioned the EPA's scientific process.

They are William Wehrum, who would head the air office of the EPA; Alex A. Beehler, chosen to be the EPA's inspector general; and Susan Dudley, who would become White House regulations chief.

The White House considers them "highly qualified and well-versed in their areas," said spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore. She said she would "not speculate" on Bush's plans for any recess appointments.

Although Democrats, who have placed environmental protection high on their agenda, now control Congress, the White House plans for the key regulatory jobs demonstrate that it still has tools at its command.

The president can bypass the Senate by making recess appointments while the Senate is on break, as Bush did when he named John R. Bolton as United Nations ambassador.

Wehrum and Beehler were proposed for the same posts last year, but Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) blocked the nominations.

Boxer now heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, where the names have been sent again. "I view it as an enormous threat to public health that the president refuses to back off," she said. The committee plans hearings on both men this month.

Dudley's nomination stalled in the last congressional session because the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee didn't vote on it. Liberal groups had objected to her.

Wehrum, a former lawyer for the chemical, utility and auto industries, was counsel to the EPA's air office when controversy erupted over the agency's new standard for power-plant mercury emissions. The mercury rule contained paragraphs lifted verbatim from a memo by Latham & Watkins, Wehrum's former law firm, which represented utility companies affected by the rule.

The agency's inspector general denounced the effort, saying it relied on industry input over science.