|
E.P.-Eh?
The Environmental Protection Agency just
isn't like it was in the good old (Nixon)
days
by Russell Train - 22 Sep 2003
There has been considerable adverse comment
from the environmental community about President
Bush's nomination of Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt
(R) to head the U.S. EPA. Most of that criticism
has focused on the governor's environmental
record in Utah, a record that appears to have
both positive and negative elements. That
he has been concerned about growth issues
is certainly to his credit. I personally believe,
however, that while Leavitt's record should
receive careful scrutiny, the central issue
today is not so much the environmental record
of the nominee as the record and ongoing intentions
of Bush and his administration in relation
to the environment overall and to the EPA
in particular.
The last EPA administrator, Christie Whitman,
had a very decent environmental record as
governor of New Jersey, particularly in the
protection of open spaces. And I think she
did her best at the EPA. However, my sense
is that, from the beginning of the Bush administration,
the White House has constantly injected itself
into the way the EPA approaches and decides
the critical issues before it. The agency
has had little or no independence. I think
that is a very great mistake, and one for
which the American people could pay over the
long run in compromised health and reduced
quality of life.
The U.S. EPA came into being in December 1970
as the result of President Nixon's initiative,
taken under the executive reorganization authority
that the president then possessed. Congress
could reject the plan but not alter it. There
was considerable debate at the time as to
how executive authority over the environment
should best be organized. Back then I was
the first chair of the president's Council
on Environmental Quality, and later the nation's
second EPA administrator, and I played a central
role in those discussions. (I recount the
history of the creation of the EPA as well
as of the many other environmental issues
of the time in my book, Politics, Pollution,
and Pandas, forthcoming from Island
Press this November.)
The White House initially favored the creation
of a new Department of Natural Resources that
would have been, in effect, a greatly expanded
Department of the Interior and would have
handled all the functions that eventually
were taken on by the EPA. Those functions
included air pollution control, water pollution
control, solid waste management, the regulation
of pesticides, herbicides, and so forth, and
the setting of environmental radiation standards.
I -- and, of course, others, particularly
in Congress -- believed that to put the proposed
EPA responsibilities into the natural resources
conglomerate would be a serious error. Among
other considerations, such an arrangement
would create a built-in conflict between environmental
responsibilities and such other responsibilities
of the enlarged department as mineral and
energy development and dam construction. I
testified at the time before the president's
reorganization council -- the Ash Council,
named for Roy Ash, its chair -- and I urged
the creation of a new independent agency in
the executive branch. Particularly at a time
of burgeoning public concern over the environment,
it was important that the federal government's
environmental responsibilities be exercised
by an agency that had a clear focus, a "sharp
cutting edge" as I called it -- an agency
without significant conflicts of interest
inherent in its structure. To Nixon's credit,
that was the route he took, despite the opposition
of powerful members of his cabinet.
From its beginning under the leadership of
William Ruckelshaus and during the remaining
three-plus years of the Republican administrations
of Presidents Nixon and Ford while I was EPA
administrator, I believe the agency fully
lived up to its responsibilities to the public
as an independent agency in the executive
branch charged with protecting the nation's
environment. I honestly believe we carried
out those responsibilities, as mandated by
various environmental statues enacted with
overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress,
such as the Clean Air Act and the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act, with the public
interest as the overriding determinant of
our decisions. That may sound a bit "holier-than-thou,"
but it happens to be true. Of course, one
cannot be in government without being exposed
to political pressures of one kind or another,
but we largely succeeded in fending those
off.
In all my time at the EPA, I don't recall
any regulatory decision that was driven by
political considerations. More to the present
point, never once, to my best recollection,
did either the Nixon or Ford White House ever
try to tell me how to make a decision.
That is not to say that the White House wasn't
interested. On one occasion, when the EPA
was about to issue regulations concerning
lead in gasoline, I got a call from Melvin
Laird, then chief of staff to Ford (and later
Secretary of Defense), who told me the White
House was receiving a lot of complaints from
the oil and auto industries over the EPA's
proposed action. Laird asked whether those
industries had had a full opportunity to express
their views to the agency and I said they
had. He then asked whether we had taken those
views fully into account. I said we had. And
with that, Laird said that was all he needed
to know. That was the end of the matter.
On another occasion, Ford asked me to meet
with him and other members of his administration
to explain the substance of a decision covering
auto-emission controls that I planned to announce
the next day. Present were several members
of the cabinet, as well as Alan Greenspan,
then chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
The country was in an economic recession at
the time, and there was understandable concern
over the economic impact of the proposed EPA
action. At the outset, Ford stated that there
would be absolutely no effort to influence
my decision at the meeting. Its purpose was
simply to reach a clear understanding of the
EPA decision. He meant that and he stuck to
it. We had a full discussion but that was
that; I proceeded to issue the regulation
as planned.
These are small anecdotes, but they illustrate
how radically we have moved away from regulation
based on independent findings and professional
analysis of scientific, health, and economic
data by the responsible agency to regulation
controlled by the White House and driven primarily
by political considerations.
The U.S. EPA has been muzzled on the issue
of global climate change; its independent
appraisal of the airborne health threats from
the World Trade Center disaster of Sept. 11,
2001, was apparently altered by White House
spin artists. Its recent decision to give
indefinite time to coal-fired energy plants
to comply with the Clean Air Act appears to
have been made under White House pressure.
(Given that the act has been in effect since
1970, one would think those plants would have
had ample time to get into compliance.) Two
of the top EPA officials associated with the
issuance of that regulation are reported to
have now left the agency to work, in one case,
for the nation's second largest coal-using
energy company and, in the other, for a principal
industry lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.
Such actions do not build much confidence
in the integrity of the regulatory process.
Such cases reflect a steady erosion of the
public interest.
I understand that Congress is now moving to
give the EPA Cabinet rank as a department,
and if that happens, Bush will doubtless hail
such department status as a great environmental
achievement of his administration. I once
supported such a move as being commensurate
with the importance of environmental issues.
Today, however, I believe that putting the
head of the EPA in the Cabinet will serve
purely and simply to further politicize our
environmental protection policies.
The real issue facing us today is not the
environmental record of Michael Leavitt. The
real issue is whether Congress and the country
will stand idly by to watch the continued
weakening of the EPA by the Bush administration
and its steady unraveling of the environmental
protection programs that have been a crowning
achievement of the United States in recent
history.
- - - - - - - - - Russell Train was EPA
administrator under Presidents Nixon and Ford.
|
