Obama Cabinet and Key White House Staff
Lisa Jackson - Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
(Cabinet-rank member of National Economic Council)
Former Chief of Staff, New Jersey Governor John Corzine
Former Commissioner, New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection
Nominated: December 15, 2008
Obama’s comments:
“Lisa has spent a lifetime in public service at the local, state and federal level. As Commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, she has helped make her state a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing new sources of energy, and she has the talent and experience to continue this effort at the EPA. Lisa also shares my commitment to restoring the EPA’s robust role in protecting our air, water and abundant natural resources so that our environment is cleaner and our communities are safer.”
Others’ comments:
“The former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and transition team member would be the first African-American EPA chief, and supporters have praised her work ethic, approachability and efforts to regulate greenhouse gases in New Jersey.
“But Jackson’s critics…say she has been too close to industry, withheld information from the public and fallen well short of the pledge she made when taking office in February 2006 to fix the state’s beleaguered toxic waste program.
“The new system for cleaning up New Jersey’s 16,000 abandoned toxic waste sites still hasn't been deployed.
“‘She identified this as her highest priority, but she never followed through,’ says Jeff Ruch, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER. ‘This failure to perform risk-based ranking for determining cleanup priorities has contributed to the belated discovery of contaminated schools and day care centers.’
“A NJDEP spokesperson said the system is now being tested and should be in place by autumn of 2009.
“In a report released this summer, the EPA’s inspector general slammed New Jersey’s failure to clean up several toxic waste sites in a timely manner, and accused the state's environmental agency of going easy on polluters and failing to seek necessary support from the EPA. The report said the department bore at least partial responsibility for ‘not implement[ing] agreements on cleanup milestones, Agency responsibilities, and enforcement actions.’
“‘If the EPA is saying that New Jersey’s enforcement is bad, you know there is a serious problem,’ says Robert Spiegel, executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association, a New Jersey based non-profit. Spiegel says he had urged Jackson to take more immediate action on some sites, and that Jackson’s field staff had done the same, but their pleas had been ignored.
“Jackson has also supported a controversial…proposal to outsource the department’s cleanup efforts to consultants, which would potentially mean cleanups conducted by groups that also work for the companies responsible for the contaminated sites.
“Many, including some of Jackson’s supporters in the environmental community, have lambasted that policy for the conflict of interest it would create.
“Jackson’s staffing decisions have also been criticized by PEER. The watchdog group points to her 2006 appointment of Nancy Wittenberg, a former New Jersey Builders Association lobbyist, as the Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Regulation as an example of Jackson’s ties to industry.
“‘[Wittenberg’s] extreme positions and statements as a lobbyist raise legitimate questions about her judgment and capacity to fairly and objectively administer environmental laws,’ said then-PEER employee Bill Wolfe in a media announcement made at the time of Wittenberg’s appointment.
“In an effort to determine just how much leverage industry lobbyists have in Jackson’s department, PEER filed a petition to get the department to give the public information on its meetings with lobbyists, but the department immediately rejected the petition.
“Jackson’s supporters ardently defend her record and place much of New Jersey’s environmental problems on [New Jersey] Gov. [John] Corzine. They say that while Corzine has offered lofty rhetoric about environmental goals, he has not helped Jackson accomplish them. Jackson left the department to take a job as Corzine’s chief of staff at the beginning of [December 2008].
“‘Lisa Jackson has been forced to work without the resources or the leadership at the top to let her do what she wanted to do,’ says Amy Goldsmith, the state policy director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation. ‘Corzine just has different priorities, and if the leader isn’t willing to lead, it is hard for somebody that's been appointed to take the reins.’
“Goldsmith…point[s] to Jackson’s work on climate change as an example of why she would make a great EPA chief.
“Last year, Corzine signed the Global Warming Response Act, which aims to cut greenhouse gases in New Jersey 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.
“‘Lisa worked closely with the governor to champion this bill, and helped lobby the legislature to approve it,’ says Dena Mottola, executive director of Environment New Jersey.
“But Ruch argues that the New Jersey environment department under Jackson’s tenure failed to meet crucial deadlines for drafting procedures to actually implement the law.
“‘As a result, despite much ballyhoo, New Jersey does not have a coherent game-plan for achieving its climate change goals,’ Ruch wrote in a letter to President-elect Obama…opposing Jackson’s nomination.
“Again, New Jersey environmentalists come to Jackson’s defense.
“‘No one worked more on this issue than my group, and if we thought missing that deadline was a huge concern we would have criticized it, and we didn’t,’ says Mottola.
“Eric Stiles, vice president for conservation at the New Jersey Audubon Society, said that while Jackson’s record isn’t perfect, she has always been receptive to his group’s arguments and straightforward about her positions and the competing interests she was considering.
“‘She really took on some big issues and big battles and moved it forward in New Jersey,’ says Stiles.”
—The Huffington Post
Approved: January 22, 2009
Appointment Impact:
During her confirmation hearing, Jackson “told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that ‘science must be the backbone of what EPA does.’ Her remarks overjoyed comittee Democrats, who have been battling with current EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson over regulatory issues that they said were influenced more by interest groups than scientific findings. … Jackson also promised committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that she would promptly review California’s request for authority to set clean-air standards that are stricter than the EPA’s. Under President Bush, the EPA had denied these requests.”
—NationalJournal.com
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