The Senate Environment Committee was scheduled to vote on the nomination of Utah governor Mike Leavitt to be administrator of the EPA today. No dice, as none of the Democrats showed. As characterize by the Assocaited Press, they boycotted the committee meeting — and are delaying a vote on Leavit’s nomination — “in a bit of partisan theater designed to dramatize their pique with the administration’s environmental policies.” As “Independent” Senator James Jeffords explained, “The Bush administration is weakening the Clean Air Act, it is weakening the Clean Water Act and it is not cleaning up Superfund sites. We have a right to know why. These are life and death issues.” Of course, the Bush Administration is doing no such thing, as I’ve sought to explain here, here, and here. But who would ever let facts get in the way of “partisan theater.”