"We are pleased with this," said Robert Moore, director of Environmental Advocates of New York, a lobbying group. Moore sat with Grannis supporters holding signs bearing Grannis' photograph and the message "Free Pete!"

The nomination, submitted in January by Gov. Eliot Spitzer, has appeared to be on the slow track as part of a battle between the governor and Senate Republicans.

Spitzer's deputy secretary for the environment, Judith Enck, who attended the Senate hearing, said it remained uncertain whether the Senate will act before Monday, when it is due to start a two-week vacation. The nomination also needs to be considered by the Senate's Finance Committee.

"If they are going away, this needs to be done first," Enck said.

The Senate Environmental Conservation Committee voted 11-3 for Grannis, a Manhattan lawmaker and avid fly fisherman. He had come under fire from sportsmen who consider him anti-gun and anti-hunting, which he repeatedly denied at both hearings.

"As a legislator, I took a pledge to uphold the Constitution, and that includes the Second Amendment," Grannis said after the meeting.

Voting against Grannis were Republican Sens. Joseph Griffo, of Rome; Elizabeth Little, of Queensbury; and Catherine Young, of Olean, who pressed Grannis to be open-minded on issues like hunting and trapping and gun rights.

When Griffo questioned Grannis about legislation he sponsored that limited the use of leg-hold traps, Grannis said he supported controls in areas where domestic pets roam, citing the traps' "indiscriminate" nature.

Grannis also told Griffo he did not support allowing all-terrain vehicles on state-owned lands in the Adirondack Park, saying irresponsible riders have ruined too much land. "Too many people believe that they can go anywhere they want on an ATV," he said.

Last week, Grannis said the top issues facing the department are rebuilding staff lost under former Gov. George Pataki, when the DEC work force shrank by one fourth, and spearheading the state's response to global warming.

A lawmaker since 1974, Grannis has been a member of the Assembly's Environmental Conservation Committee and pushed such issues as the State Environmental Quality Review Act, the original bottle bill, and brownfield cleanup and revitalization. He authored the state's 1989 Clean Indoor Air Act and its 2003 amendments, which banned smoking in most public and work places.