WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Republican senator from Missouri on Monday said he will place a hold on President Barack Obama’s nominee to head up the Environmental Protection Agency until it moves forward with a project to repair a levee on the Mississippi River.

At the same time Senator Roy Blunt announced his move on the Gina McCarthy nomination as EPA administrator, a Senate energy committee hearing said it would consider nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz’s nomination to head the U.S. Energy Department.