It is a testament to the Bush administration's remarkable capacity for deceit and willful incompetence that, over the span of just eight years, it has transformed the EPA, once the gatekeeper of the nation's environmental policies, into a shadow of its former self -- an agency better known for undermining the environment than for protecting it. As John Laumer, a fellow writer at TreeHugger, recently quipped, only in half-jest, the Environmental Protection Agency has turned into the Environmental Destruction Agency under the president's watch (or lack thereof, I should say).
Indeed, few agencies under the Bush administration have seen their authority and professionalism erode at such an alarming rate. Even when compared to other Republicans -- yes, Reagan included -- what President Bush and his cronies have done to the EPA is nothing short of sabotage: the complete unraveling of years' worth of hard work and the neutering of its staff. These heinous acts were overseen by a team of pliant bureaucrats who shared the administration's enthusiasm for deregulation and disdain for hard evidence.
In that respect, one name clearly stands out above the rest: Stephen L. Johnson, the current administrator. (Though Christine Todd Whitman, his predecessor, certainly was no prize--World Trade Center collapse aftermath, anyone? -- she at least had the decency to resign when she butted heads with Cheney.)
History will no doubt remember Johnson, an actual scientist who ignored the science, as one of the agency's worst administrators. Here is a man who could have helped bring about the nation's first mandatory greenhouse gas regulations, among other things, but instead chose to accede to the wishes of his political masters -- who evidently wanted him to do everything in his power to squelch his staff's work.
His, and the administration's failures as a whole, are highlighted in an excellent ongoing investigative series by The Philadelphia Inquirer, entitled, appropriately enough, "Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA". While it doesn't reveal much that isn't already familiar to close observers, it does so with tremendous gusto: interviewing numerous EPA officials, legislators and environmentalists to reconstruct the timeline of events leading up to some of the agency's most fateful (and disastrous) decisions.
Whether it be Johnson's rejection of California's landmark auto emissions waiver or his decision to redact a report making clear the dangers of climate change, the articles pull no punches in laying the blame squarely at his feet. Even now, only a month before he is set to leave the EPA, Johnson has been abetting the Bush administration's efforts to unravel the remainder of the agency's legacy: lowering the air quality standards for lead, waiving the need for a permit to discharge animal waste into waterways and more (ProPublica has an excellent overview of these and other midnight regulations).
Which brings us now to the incoming Obama administration and its (supposed) pick for EPA head: Lisa Jackson. By all accounts, she would be a huge improvement over Johnson (which isn't necessarily saying much, of course). Though not a scientist, she has considerable experience as a regulator, having served as the Commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection (its version of the EPA) for several years before joining Governor Jon Corzine's cabinet. However, assessments of her performance have been sharply divided.
According to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (which helped expose many of the EPA's worst excesses), she espoused many of the practices -- politicization of the science, ignoring her staff's advice, using gag orders to squelch dissent -- that made the Bush EPA so disastrous. The group also asserts that she put public health at risk by ignoring rising levels of water pollution, mercury contamination and other waste-related problems.
By contrast, the Sierra Club's New Jersey chapter has been one of her most vocal advocates, lauding her knowledge, competency and willingness to take on the New Jersey establishment (Jeff Tittel, its director, told TNR's Bradford Plumer that Corzine is "the worst environmental governor" the state has ever had). It's hard to believe they're talking about the same individual.
While I can't say I'm thrilled by this pick (not nearly as much as I was by the choice of Steven Chu, anyways), I'll reserve final judgment until she takes up her duties. She will immediately face a mountain of challenges -- not the least of which will be restoring the agency's credibility and its staff's morale. Either way, I'm sure I won't miss Stephen Johnson.