Senate Democrats Wednesday failed to capture enough votes to move forward on the nomination of David Hayes to be deputy secretary of the Department of Interior.

Democrats fell three votes shy (57-39) of the 60 votes that were needed to invoke cloture and end debate on Hayes’ nomination. The Republicans were unified in their opposition to Hayes, with the exception of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) who voted for Hayes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called for the cloture vote, even though two Republican senators had holds on Hayes’ nomination.

The vote doesn’t kill Hayes’ nomination. In fact, Democrats are expected to bring up his nomination for another vote next week, a Capitol Hill aide said. And Hayes may very well be confirmed, given that the five Democrats who were absent from Wednesday’s vote are expected to be there for a second vote.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) has had a hold on Hayes’ nomination since March. He said he was dissatisfied with Hayes’ response to his questions about disputed Utah oil and natural gas leases (see Daily GPI, March 19).

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) joined Bennett in his hold on Hayes earlier this month (see Daily GPI, May 4). She protested the Obama administration’s decision to “unilaterally overturn” a Bush-era regulation that allowed federal agencies to forgo “broad interagency consultations” with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration before taking any action that may affect threatened or endangered species.

“This was a tired vote of bitter obstructionism,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said of the Senate vote. “It may be uncomfortable for some to watch us have to clean up mess after mess…that is the previous administration’s legacy at Interior, but to cast a vote against such a qualified and fine person is the height of cynicism.”

On Wednesday Salazar responded to letters from Murkowski and Bennett, trying to defuse their opposition to several of his actions — withholding 77 Utah leases, delaying a new five-year (2010-2015) leasing plan for the Outer Continental Shelf and the reversal of a Bush-era rule dealing with consultations involving the Endangered Species Act.

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