EPA nominee vows to follow science

Lisa P. Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, testified yesterday that if confirmed by the Senate she would put science before politics.

Although Jackson did not mention the Bush administration by name, the testimony from the former head of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection was an apparent - but restrained - swipe at the departing president's stewardship of the air and water.

"If I am confirmed, I will administer with science as my guide," Jackson told members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "Political appointees will not compromise the integrity of EPA's technical experts to advance particular regulatory outcomes."

Environmentalists, Democrats, and even some Republicans have sharply criticized the Bush EPA.

Pointing to posters mounted behind her, committee chair Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) cited headlines from an Inquirer series and articles in other newspapers as evidence that the agency had departed from its mission.

"All you have to do is look at these headlines and see how astray they've gone," Boxer said.

The Inquirer series last month detailed how administrator Stephen L. Johnson rejected the advice of the nation's leading scientists in setting certain air-quality standards; issued flawed regulations that resulted in delayed protection of public health; and pushed a program that praised certain companies with subpar records as being environmental leaders.

Johnson was at a Martin Luther King Day celebration elsewhere in Washington and did not watch the hearings. Agency spokesman Jonathan Shradar insisted that Johnson considered science in his decisions.

"Science has been the foundation of EPA decisions" within the confines of the law, Shradar said. "Because of that, the air is cleaner, the water is cleaner, and the land is better protected."

Shradar reiterated Johnson's support for his likely successor.

During the hearing of more than four hours, the committee considered Jackson's appointment and that of Nancy H. Sutley, whom Obama has chosen to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Both nominees are expected to be confirmed by the full Senate, possibly as soon as next week.

Jackson's testimony came as the Bush administration got another rebuke - from one of its former members.

In a commentary today in the British scientific journal Nature, Christine Todd Whitman, the former EPA chief and former New Jersey governor, wrote that the environment "was not a priority" for the Bush administration.

In the article, she said that while she held the EPA job, the agency's leadership role was usurped by Vice President Cheney and the Council on Environmental Quality.

Jackson, who headed the New Jersey DEP under Gov. Corzine, has 21 years of government service, 15 at the EPA.

During her testimony, the New Orleans native described how her mother "lost all she had" in Hurricane Katrina. Despairing after the chaotic government response to the disaster, Jackson nearly left public service, she said.

She pledged to follow objectives set out by Obama - among them reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming; regulating toxic chemicals; and cleaning up hazardous-waste sites.

The Bush administration has been faulted for its handling of all these issues. After pressure from the White House, for example, Johnson rescinded his finding that carbon dioxide posed a threat to human health.

Jackson said she would not allow politics to trump science at the agency.

"Science must be the backbone of what EPA does," she said. "EPA's addressing of scientific decisions should reflect the expert judgment of the agency's career scientists and independent advisers."

Jackson's support for science drew praise from the ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma - a Johnson supporter and a longtime opponent of those who have raised the alarm about global warming.

"That was music to my ears," Inhofe told Jackson about her embrace of science. "I hope that includes a recognition that science changes."

As is common in political debates, all sides race to claim science as their ally - and environmentalists were likewise high on Jackson.

"It was telling that Jackson expressed a commitment to scientific integrity and the rule of law, since the reason for her doing that was an unprecedented trampling of those principles by the Bush administration," said John Walke, director of the clean-air project at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"I'm thrilled that she came out so strongly on the record for her commitment to scientific integrity," said Francesca Grifo, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In its survey of EPA scientists released last year, the advocacy group reported political interference with the agency's scientific decisions and retaliation against those employees who complained about it.

Boxer, a harsh critic of Johnson and Bush, said Jackson's nomination marked a new day at the agency, but she warned Jackson it would be a tough job.

"EPA is a shadow of its former self today," Boxer said.

Jackson responded:

"I would see nothing more important to restoring the health of the people of the United States and restoring the health of the Environmental Protection Agency itself."

Read The Inquirer's series "Smoke and Mirrors:

The Subversion of the EPA": http://go.philly.com/epaEndText