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Reid, GOP reach agreement to vote on Commerce nominee
The nominee, John Bryson, has come under fire from Republicans for his previous support for cap-and-trade legislation and his role in founding a major environmental group in the 1970s.
Reid reached an agreement with Republicans Wednesday night to have four hours of debate equally divided between Democrats and Republicans on the Bryson nomination.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) placed a hold on Bryson’s nomination in June, citing concerns about his energy and environmental record.
But Inhofe spokesman Matt Dempsey said Wednesday night that the senator has reached an agreement with leadership to hold a vote on the Bryson nomination.
Inhofe and other Republicans have criticized Bryson for being a founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council in the 1970s. They also have pointed to a comment from a March 2009 speech in which Bryson called the cap-and-trade bill that narrowly passed the House in 2009 a “moderate, but acceptable, bill.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, has called Bryson an “environmental extremist.”
Bryson’s supporters say he is hardly an extremist. He spent 18 years as an energy executive, serving as CEO of Edison International, a California-based electric power generator.
Before his time at Edison International, Bryson spent years working on water and power issues in California, first as chairman of the California State Water Resources Control Board in the late 1970s and then as head of the California Public Utilities Commission.
He has also served as a co-chairman of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, an electric vehicles trade association, and as a member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change.
Bryson has a wealth of non-energy related experience as a director of Boeing and Walt Disney Co.
