Are we there yet?

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has decided she'll take another look at monitoring of car battery recyclers, concrete kilns and power plants that spew dangerous lead emissions. She did not say she'd toughen up the monitoring, but clean air advocates are hopeful.

"It's a step in the right direction for public health, and children's health in particular," said Avi Kar, staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. His group and several others petitioned the agency in January to reconsider -- and tighten -- proposed monitoring requirements on lead emitting facilities. On Thursday, Jackson granted their petition, and said a new monitoring proposal would be ready later this summer.

"We do take it as a good sign that they're willing to reconsider," said Kar in an interview.

In an online blog post, he was more effusive.

The granting of NRDC's petition for reconsideration, as it's known in bureaucratic parlance, is one step in a still lengthy process. There will be a proposal, public comment, and, finally, a possible amendment to a huge update of the entire lead regulation. This is the federal government, after all.

"This is just reconsideration, this is just a first step," said EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn. "NRDC and others asked us to reconsider it, and our answer is yes, we will reconsider it. ... We can't 'just change the rule' without going through notice-and-comment rulemaking. We can't change any final rule without giving the public opportunity to comment on potential changes."

Many in the environmental movement were astonished last fall when President Bush's EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, took his own scientists' advice over the complaints of industry, and lowered the legally allowable amounts of lead in the air by more than ten times. Lead battery smelters had charged over to the White House a few weeks earlier, as a court deadline neared to update the regulation. It was the first time lead limits had been touched since 1978.

The astonishment turned to familiar groans from environmentalists when it turned out White House budget officials had intervened at the eleventh hour to eliminate required monitoring for facilities emitting less than a ton of lead annually. Being exposed to the heavy metal in even small amounts can damage children's brain development, heart and kidney functions, among other maladies. Johnson's own staff had recommended that facilities spewing out half a ton be monitored in geographic areas where emissions exceed the new limits.

The night before Johnson's announcement, a senior EPA staffer e-mailed a White House Office of Management and Budget staff person saying a technical, rather than a policy explanation, was needed for why there had been a last minute, sharp reduction in monitoring. That explanation was never received, and Johnson followed the White House recommendations in his announcement the next day.

EPA staff reiterated in a conversation this week that proper monitoring is a critical part of protecting public health.

Any proposal by Jackson and her staff will have to be vetted by the White House budget office again, said Milbourn in an e-mail.

"Yes, whatever we propose will have to go back to OMB," she wrote.

A battery council representative did not return a call for comment Thursday. Industry representatives have argued in the past that they are among the world's best recyclers, and that the new regulations could drive their business overseas to places with far more lax health and environmental regulations.

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Eighteen months ago, I watched the head of the Environmental Protection Administration shake hands with Mickey Mouse after the two had hoisted a compact fluorescent light bulb for a Disneyland photo op. I'd been promised a sit-down interview with Stephen Johnson, the career EPA staffer tapped by George W. Bush in 2005 to run the agency, but his handlers evidently thought better of it, and reneged.

Instead, they gave me a few minutes to sprint alongside Johnson as he headed out of the Magic Kingdom. I asked him when he would respond to an April 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that compelled the EPA to decide whether greenhouse gases were endangering the public, and ordering the agency to act if there was a risk. That could include allowing California and other states to move forward on tough laws requiring recalcitrant automakers to slash greenhouse gas emissions. All that was needed was his signature waiving the states from having to wait for national action. Similar waivers on air pollution regulations have been granted for decades.

Johnson, a genial, unfailingly polite man (whether shaking hands with an oversized mouse or being accosted by a Los Angeles Times reporter), said he had ordered his staff to respond to the Supreme Court with an national emission plan that was even better than the states' by the end of 2007. He said he was extremely proud of how hard they were working to get it done. Then he was off for the first leg of a Sony-funded, cross-country tour promoting the aforementioned light bulbs as a bright idea for slowing global warming.

Back in D.C., EPA career staffers were indeed pulling long nights and weekends to finish a comprehensive plan. That December they presented it to their boss and the White House. The report concluded that greenhouse gases were in fact a danger, that a national plan was needed, and that California and the other states should be allowed to act.

Johnson's response? "He froze us out," said one exhausted, frustrated staffer I tracked down in a late night phone call at the time. In an Orwellian series of phone calls and e-mails, White House staffers also refused to acknowledge to me that they'd received any such document from the EPA. If they had confirmed it publicly, it would have set in motion the process requiring the federal government to act. Weeks later, Johnson denied California's waiver request.

Last July Johnson went further, saying that despite the high court's order, the Clean Air Act was "the wrong tool for addressing greenhouse gases" because it would be too costly for the American public, and that Congress should pass legislation to tackle the issue.

By engaging in such Mickey Mouse stunts, Johnson broke his word to his own staff and the American public.

Today, his successor, Lisa Jackson, partly reversed course, announcing that the EPA had in fact concluded that mounting greenhouse gases pose a serious threat. In the accompanying report, agency staff again laid out a frightening litany of possible dangers: increased heat waves that would likely fell the elderly, the very young and the chronically ill, increases in ozone smog that would add to respiratory infection, asthma and premature death, more severe coastal hurricanes, and other devastating impacts.

The report also explicitly tied motor vehicle emissions to climate change. But there was no mention of allowing California or more than a dozen other states to move forward promptly with their long languishing laws. Quite the opposite.

In a briefing with Senate staff Friday before the announcement, Jackson's new climate change adviser, who led the charge for Massachusetts in the Supreme Court case, said the legal underpinning for granting the states' waivers had nothing to do with finding a danger from greenhouse gases. Sierra Club attorney David Bookbinder and California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols both said the same thing. "We are delighted" by Jackson's decision, said Nichols. "And it has no bearing on the California waiver decision, there's no connection."

That doesn't quite jibe with what environmental attorneys and California regulators were saying a year ago, and it's not clear why. Possibly Jackson intends to finally approve California's waiver and let it and other states proceed with concrete action to tackle greenhouse gases, and she doesn't want some new legal finding to delay that. In fact Congress slipped a little noticed June 30 deadline for her to either grant or deny California's waiver request into this year's omnibus budget act.

But perhaps there's no public mention of the states' emissions laws because she and the new president don't want to face the heat from irate automakers and business interests, preferring to leave it to Congress to do the dirty work on climate change. Indeed, Jackson and Obama are sounding curiously like their predecessors, Bush and Johnson, wanting to punt to Congress to take action.

As today's EPA press release concluded, in classic government verbosity, "Notwithstanding this required regulatory process, both President Obama and Administrator Jackson have repeatedly indicated their preference for comprehensive legislation to address this issue."

Furious jockeying will begin in earnest next week over climate change legislation proposed by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has promised the House will pass a bill by Memorial Day. But even the most optimistic observers say it will be a steep climb to meet that deadline.

This afternoon, there is Beltway chatter about harmonizing states' climate laws creatively with a national automobile regulation, with both included in the Waxman-Markey bill. There is also brave talk of the regulatory process marching onward no matter what happens in Congress.

There is no talk of promptly granting the states' waivers.

In the meantime, an estimated 7 billion tons of greenhouse gases continue to pour annually from U.S. automobiles and smokestacks into the atmosphere. Hopefully, Obama and Jackson will move forward quickly to address the looming perils laid out in today's report. Otherwise, they risk looking like Mickey's pals, Goofy and Minnie.

---

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As government titles go, "administrator" doesn't have the same ring as "secretary," "czar," or "ambassador." But it's an accurate moniker for the top job at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the president's appointee is charged with running an agency of 17,000 employees organized around 10 regional offices, with an overall annual budget of more than $7 billion.

As former administrator Christine Todd Whitman learned, the president's environmental agenda severely shapes what an EPA administrator can accomplish. Still, each EPA leader has left a particular mark on the agency, and by extension on the air, water, and land it is charged with protecting. Here's a look at the agency's past administrators and their accomplishments in office:

William D. Ruckelshaus.

William D. Ruckelshaus
Served Dec. 4, 1970 - April 30, 1973,
under Richard Nixon

By 1970, many Americans had been convinced of the need for federal environmental protection, thanks to a fire on the polluted Cuyahoga River, a big oil spill along the Santa Barbara coastline, and Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring. President Richard Nixon tapped William Ruckelshaus, an assistant attorney general and air-quality advocate from Indiana, to construct the first EPA by piecing together programs from the Interior Department and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

The EPA's first administrator remains one of the most popular with environmentalists, both for navigating the Nixon White House and for setting a high professional standard. Ruckelshaus recruited an idealistic and qualified staff and established the precedent for soliciting public and industry input on regulations. He oversaw the implementation of the landmark Clean Air Act extension of 1970 and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972.

Ruckelshaus left the EPA to become acting director of the FBI and then second-in-command at the Justice Department, where he resigned in protest when Nixon ordered him to fire the Watergate special prosecutor (the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" of Oct. 20, 1973). He would be back at the EPA a decade later under another Republican president.

Russell E. Train.

Russell E. Train
Served Sept. 12, 1973 - Jan. 20, 1977,
under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford

Russ Train moved to the top of the EPA after three years as the first chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Like Ruckelshaus, he benefited from a public and Congress that largely supported environmental legislation and two presidents who may not have realized the depth of their commitment to environmental protection.

Train was considered as successful as Ruckelshaus in building up the young organization and implementing significant new legislation, including the Toxic Substances Control Act and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.

Bill Drayton, a management consultant and founder of the social entrepreneurship organization Ashoka, said Train's success came from his shrewd management structure. "It was really a very brilliant architecture," said Drayton, who served as assistant administrator in the Carter EPA. "It took a very difficult problem and said, 'OK, we're going let people take bite-sized pieces and do something about it. But we're still going to think together and have a coherent policy and coherent priorities.' It was a management structure well ahead of its time."

Douglas Costle.

Douglas Costle
Served March 6, 1977 - Jan. 20, 1981,
under Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter, the first Democratic president since the formation of the EPA, took more initiative on environmental issues than his two predecessors, and his EPA administrator played a key role in backing him up.

A veteran of the Johnson administration, Douglas Costle helped Carter push through the 1977 Clean Water Act, the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments, and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which regulated coal mining. Costle also worked with the Interior Department to prevent new coal plants (planned during the Ford administration) from being built near national parks.

Dealing with the environmental health disaster at Love Canal, the Niagara Falls neighborhood built atop 22,000 tons of toxic chemical waste, consumed much of Costle's attention in the second half of Carter's term. The president declared the situation a federal emergency and relocated residents. Costle's EPA sued Hooker Chemical Co., which polluted the site in the in 1940s and '50s. It also urged Congress to create the Superfund program for cleaning up hazardous waste sites.

Anne Gorsuch.

Anne Gorsuch (later Anne Gorsuch Burford)
Served May 20, 1981 - March 9, 1983,
under Ronald Reagan

What sort of EPA administrator would suit a president who declared that "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do"? One who did not want the EPA to exist.

Under Ronald Reagan's watch, Anne Gorsuch tried to dismantle the agency she was charged with leading. She immediately cut its budget by 22 percent and sought more cuts. Enforcement cases from regional EPA offices fell by 79 percent during her first year, a House Energy and Commerce Committee investigator told Grist in 2004.

Since Gorsuch couldn't get rid of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, she tried to gut them with proposals to weaken pollution standards, though Congress prevented much of this. Gorsuch's tenure ended in less than two years after she was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over Superfund records. But her open scorn for scientific counsel had a lasting impact on her party, particularly in the House, said Joe Browder, a Friends of the Earth founder and Everglades restoration advocate. Her most lasting legacy was "making anti-environmentalism one of the 10 commandments of being a Republican," Browder said.

William Ruckelshaus.

William Ruckelshaus
Served a second term, May 18, 1983 - Jan. 4, 1985, under Ronald Reagan

The EPA's first administrator returned to the agency from a V.P. post at Northwest logging giant Weyerhaeuser. President Reagan convinced Ruckelshaus he wanted a true environmental defender in the position, Ruckelshaus said. The president may have realized he overreached with Gorsuch.

Ruckelshaus made a sincere effort to restore enforcement work at the agency, appointing new assistants and seeking to restore funding to pre-Reagan levels. He phased out the use of pesticide ethylene dibromide, which was found to be a carcinogen. Even with Ruckelshaus, the Reagan administration could not be characterized as environmentally friendly, but Ruckelshaus' second stint at the EPA was a clear step forward for the agency, said University of Florida Professor of Political Science Walter Rosenbaum. "Ruckelshaus came back really to restore a measure of respectability and credibility to Congress," said Rosenbaum. "He was wonderfully received by the agency and did a lot to restore morale."

Lee Thomas.

Lee Thomas
Served Feb. 8, 1985 - Jan. 20, 1989,
under Ronald Reagan

After spending two years directing the EPA's Superfund and hazardous-waste programs as an assistant administrator, Lee Thomas became the first insider to lead the agency. He continued the rebuilding necessary after Anne Gorsuch's leadership, although he remained limited in this work by Reagan's Office of Management and Budget (presidents use the OMB to set both budgetary and regulatory policy throughout the government). Thomas banned uses of asbestos and implemented amendments to the Superfund program and the Safe Drinking Water Act. He also commissioned a study of EPA priorities that found the agency devoted too many resources to low-risk hazards while neglecting other more serious hazards, such as indoor air pollution and drinking-water contamination.

William Reilly.

William Reilly
Served Feb. 6, 1989 - Jan. 20, 1993,
under George H.W. Bush

Bill Reilly joined the EPA after leading the World Wildlife Fund, becoming the first administrator to come directly from a job in the environmental community. A month into his tenure, the Exxon Valdez oil spill thrust the EPA into the international spotlight, and Reilly helped organize an emergency response. He also helped the Bush White House pass the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, which included a sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade system to address acid rain.

"He was an avowed environmentalist in an administration which was not particularly sympathetic to the environment," said Rosenbaum of the University of Florida, "although George Bush was much more willing to live with environmental laws than [Reagan] was. Reilly was probably the only really strong voice for environmental protection near the White House. He was very much the odd man out."

Reilly's most public disagreement with the White House involved the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Reilly tried to mediate between Bush and representatives from 171 other countries working to address climate change, threats to biodiversity, and water scarcity. He asked summit leaders to adjust the treaty in hopes of persuading Bush to sign it. Leaders in Rio complied, but Bush withheld his support, which Reilly considered the low point of his time at the EPA.

(The Rio conference, incidentally, marked Al Gore's emergence as a leading voice on climate change. Gore attended the conference just as his book Earth in the Balance was published. A month after returning from Rio, Gore joined Bill Clinton's presidential ticket.)

Carol Browner.

Carol Browner
Served Jan. 22, 1993 - Jan. 19, 2001,
under Bill Clinton

Carol Browner worked as Al Gore's Senate legislative director and head of Florida's Department of Environmental Protection before becoming the longest-serving administrator of the EPA. She developed a cleanup program for brownfields (abandoned, contaminated urban property) and helped push through amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act to require water suppliers to distribute annual quality reports to citiziens, among other safeguards.

Browner initiated Project XL, which gave businesses some flexibility in complying with EPA requirements. She also fought off House Republican attempts to weaken the Clean Water Act and was instrumental in promoting the Kyoto climate treaty, which George W. Bush later rejected.

The Clinton administration was never able to make as much environmental progress as greens hoped, in part because Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1994 elections and pursued an anti-regulatory agenda. Environmentalists such as Rosenbaum say Browner was able to strike a fair balance between accommodating industry and enforcing rigorous standards.

Browner was recently tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to head up environment and energy policymaking in the White House -- a sort of climate/energy czar. The move was not surprising, given her role as head of the Obama transition team's environment and energy work group.

Christine Todd Whitman.

Christine Todd Whitman
Served Jan. 31, 2001 - June 27, 2003,
under George W. Bush

Christine Todd Whitman left her post as New Jersey governor to work for a president who had promised to cap carbon emissions during his campaign. Bush quickly abandoned that position and revealed his true environmental colors in a manner that may have caught Whitman by surprise.

"I think she came there convinced that she was going to be a kind of conciliator between the Bush administration and the Republican majority of Congress and the environmental community," Rosenbaum said. "She got a very rude awakening to the fact that she was the odd person out, and she was gone very soon."

Whitman commissioned a comprehensive scientific report on the state of the environment, but the White House censored it, removing evidence about rising global temperatures and human-created causes. Bush sent her to G8 climate change negotiations in Trieste, Italy, without telling her he had removed his support from the meeting. After the 9/11 attacks, Whitman assured New Yorkers that the air in Lower Manhattan was safe to breathe. A 2003 report [PDF] by the EPA inspector general found the agency "did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement." Residents sued Whitman in a class-action lawsuit that involved the question of whether the White House pressured her into encouraging workers to return to the area. In April 2008, a federal appeals court dismissed the case.

Whitman resigned in mid-2003, and she later said that interference from Vice President Dick Cheney's office on clean-air regulations prompted her decision. In 2005, Whitman penned It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America, which argued that the Republican party's failure to moderate its positions on environmental and social issues would ultimately amount to political suicide.

Michael Leavitt.

Michael Leavitt
Served Nov. 6, 2003 - Jan. 26, 2005,
under George W. Bush

After a testy relationship with Whitman, Bush reached for a loyalist in Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt. When the pick was announced, news organizations noted that Leavitt, like Bush, favored shifting pollution control from the feds to the states, and supported the notion of voluntary environmental protections rather than mandatory ones.

Leavitt wasn't a zealous EPA saboteur along the lines of Anne Gorsuch, but neither did he challenge the White House standard of deferring to industry wishes. He backed Bush's mercury emissions plan, which was derided for being too lax and driven by the coal lobby. Before the 2004 election, Leavitt was accused of electioneering in swing states. After just 13 months at the EPA, Leavitt moved to the head of the Health and Human Services Department at the start of Bush's second term.

Stephen Johnson.

Stephen Johnson
Served April 29, 2005 - present,
under George W. Bush

Like Christine Todd Whitman, career scientist and 24-year EPA veteran Stephen Johnson received cautious praise from environmentalists when he was first announced. He wasted little time in losing their support.

In late 2007, Johnson denied California's request for a waiver to implement its rigorous tailpipe emissions law, limiting the state (and 16 others that had followed suit) in taking action against global warming. In doing so, Johnson ignored the scientific advice of his own agency, paved the way for a legal battle the EPA's lawyers predicted it would lose, and drew calls for a Justice Department investigation from Senate critics. Against the backdrop of seven years of federal inaction on climate change, the waiver issue stood as a low point of the Bush administration's environmental record.

The rest of Johnson's record is equally dubious, as has been well documented by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Among many other things, the EPA's response to Hurricane Katrina has been criticized widely, and there is evidence that Johnson interfered with EPA science on pesticides. Even the EPA had trouble listing successes from Johnson's tenure: its "Timeline of Accomplishments" ends in 2006.

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