WASHINGTON -- The future of the nomination of Arkansan Colette Honorable is among the myriad of issues left undecided as U.S. Senate leaders negotiate what to complete before heading home for the holidays.
RELATED ARTICLES
http://www.arkansas…">Reid presses for quick vote on spendinghttp://www.arkansas…">What's in the billhttp://www.arkansas…">State concerns aboard, 2 help pass defense billhttp://www.arkansas…">Senate vote sends $585B military policy bill to Obama's desk
U.S. Sen. John Boozman said Friday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are still negotiating which nominations to vote on. When the Senate will leave is not yet clear, but is expected to happen early next week.
"What's holding us up right now as far as a path forward is all of the nominations that they have that they'd like to get done," the Republican from Rogers said. "They are in the process of prioritizing what they can bring forward."
Honorable's nomination to serve on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is among the nearly 150 nominations pending before the U.S. Senate. Nominations not considered before the Senate leaves have to restart the process in January.
Democrats are thought to be focused on confirming nine federal judges, as well as surgeon general nominee Vivek Murthy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement head nominee Sarah Saldana and Social Security administrator nominee Carolyn Colvin.
Boozman said Senate leaders are weighing how many controversial nominees to put to a vote versus how many noncontroversial nominees.
Honorable, 44, is chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission. She was nominated in August to replace John Norris, who resigned from the federal energy agency almost three years before his term expired to take a position with the U.S. Agriculture Department.
With support from Republicans and Democrats as well as industry and consumer groups, Honorable is not considered a controversial nominee.
"Certainly we'd like to get her [confirmation] done as soon as possible. If by chance she is not confirmed, then we're going to work really hard to make sure she's at the top of the list in the new Congress, but we haven't given up right now by any means," Boozman said.
Honorable faced largely friendly questioning by members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during her confirmation hearing. Though too few senators were present at the committee's Wednesday meeting to send her nomination to the full Senate, a committee aide said members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee met off the Senate floor Thursday to move the nomination forward.
The committee's current chairman, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and incoming chairman U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, both praised Honorable's experience and urged Obama to renominate her if the Senate does not confirm the nomination this year.
On Thursday, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners urged the Senate to bring up and approve Honorable's nomination quickly. Honorable was a past president of the association.
"Given her broad expertise in utility regulation, Chairman Honorable will be an effective addition at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. She brings an important, consumer-focused perspective to the agency," association President Lisa Edgar of Florida said in a statement.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulates transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil. It also reviews proposals to build liquefied natural gas terminals and interstate natural-gas pipelines as well as licensing hydropower projects.
Honorable served as Arkansas Workforce Investment Board executive director in 2007 before Gov. Mike Beebe appointed her to the Public Service Commission. When Beebe was attorney general, Honorable worked as his chief of staff from 2006 to 2007 and as assistant attorney general for civil litigation from 2004 to 2006.
She also worked as an associate at Cauley Geller Bowman and Rudman LLP in Little Rock from 2003 to 2004. Honorable was an assistant city attorney in North Little Rock from 2003 to 2004, an assistant public defender from 1998 to 1999, a judicial law clerk at the Arkansas Court of Appeals from 1997 to 1998 and a staff attorney at the Center for Arkansas Legal Services from 1995 to 1996.
Honorable has a bachelor's degree from Memphis State University and a juris doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen law school.
Metro on 12/13/2014