The Senate has yet to schedule any consideration of the Gov. Corbett’s nominees for the Secretaries of Environmental Protection and Conservation and Natural Resources since their nominations were announced September 20.

Chris Abruzzo was nominated to be DEP Secretary and Ellen Ferretti was selected for DCNR.  Both nominations are in the Senate Rules Committee and have not yet been referred to the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee for consideration.

The Senate has 25 legislative days, the days the Senate is in voting session, to consider nominations.  In this case the clock started officially on October 20 with both nominations because that’s when the paperwork got to the Senate.

Both nominations are now on day 16.

The Senate is scheduled to return to voting session December 3 and will be in session a total of five days in December.

If the nominations are not acted on in December, the Governor will have to re-submit the nomination paperwork in January, including new financial disclosure statements, and the Senate will have 10 additional legislative days to consider the nominations.

11/25/2013