WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — Senate Democrats used the confirmation hearing today on Gov. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah, President Bush's choice for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a forum to sharply criticize the administration's environmental record, all but ignoring the nominee sitting in front of them.

In the packed, three-hour hearing, members of the Environment and Public Works Committee told Mr. Leavitt repeatedly that the job he was seeking was one of the worst in Washington.

In response, Mr. Leavitt said that he viewed himself as a problem solver, that his preferred approach was collaboration and that his main goal was clean air.

"The solutions to these problems are found in the productive middle," he said. "Rarely are they found at the extremes." [p6: where have I heard THAT before??]

Democrats and Republicans expect the committee to confirm Mr. Leavitt when it meets next week and say that the full Senate will vote to confirm him.

But four Democratic senators — Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and three who are running for president: John Kerry of Massachusetts, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and John Edwards of North Carolina — have said they will bar the nomination from reaching the Senate until President Bush addressed certain issues. These include questions about why the administration removed warnings from agency press releases about the safety of the air at ground zero in New York shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.