The Bush administration’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency won approval from the Senate Environment Committee on Wednesday, less than a week after the nominee scrapped a controversial program to test the effects of pesticides on small children.

The nomination of Stephen Johnson, a scientist at the EPA for some two decades, now goes to the full Senate for a vote.

Johnson ran into trouble when Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida said they would place a “hold” on his nomination unless he canceled a $9 million program to study how children were affected by their family’s routine use of various pesticides. The research was partially funded by the American Chemistry Council, a trade group.

After initially defending the study as important to help the agency understand how kids are exposed to pesticides that are common in American homes, Johnson said on Friday he would drop the program.