Republican politicians have rewritten committee rules to approve Donald Trump's pick for Environmental Protection Agency chief after Democrats boycotted the meeting.
Scott Pruitt has proved hugely controversial since Donald Trump decided he would head up the EPA. He has sued the agency a number of times and suggested that he would be keen to do away with almost everything that it does.
“The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses,” Pruitt said in a statement after he was picked in December.
It is the second day that the Republicans have used rules that they wrote themselves to force through cabinet picks that would otherwise have been challenged by Democrats. The Senate committee already approved Mr Trump's choice for health and treasury secretaries after the rules were suspended.
Previously, the rules had required that at least two Democrat was present to approve of new picks. But amid escalating tensions, Republican politicians suspended that restriction.
That meant that Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee could vote through the pick without any input from their Democrat colleagues. The 10 Democrats that usually sit on the committee boycotted it, leaving their seats empty.
Republican politicians accused the Democrats of obstruction, and the 11 of them unanimously voted to suspend the rules and force through Mr Trump's pick.
In 2013, GOP members of the same committee boycotted a similar committee meeting on Gina McCarthy, President Obama's then-nominee for EPA administrator. McCarthy was eventually approved by the Senate, serving in the post until Trump's inauguration earlier this month.
