Dubya taps Leavitt to head EPA

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

I have had the opportunity to meet nd extensively talk with Gov Leavitt who 
is an active member of the Markle Foundation National Security Taskforce 
tht I am also on. He is a real good person, and a user of and under stander 
of technology. He is wonderful to work with and I expect will be a good EPA 
head who will try at least.

Dave

.
Dubya taps Leavitt to head EPA
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Aug 12, 2003, 05:44

In his term, President Bush chose for his environment chief a GOP governor 
who has cultivated an image as a moderate on environmental issues.

By picking Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to succeed Christie Whitman as head of 
the Environmental Protection Agency, Bush is tapping someone who might 
strengthen the president's standing with green-minded voters.

But some environmentalists say there is a difference between Leavitt and 
Whitman, who left the New Jersey governorship in 2001 to run the EPA.

Whitman resigned in May; Bush announced his nomination of Leavitt on Monday.

"Like Christie Whitman, Governor Leavitt started out with a reputation as a 
moderate, but unlike her, he has taken a hard right turn on the 
environment," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental 
Trust, an advocacy group.

Larry Young, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 
said Leavitt's record on public lands, wetlands conservation and sprawl 
issues was unimpressive.

"It's an appointment that fits right in line with the Bush administration 
record. You're not going to see any dramatic improvement. It's business as 
usual," Young said.

Promising to improve the nation's air quality, Leavitt said he would listen 
to all sides.

"There is no progress polarizing at the extremes but great progress when we 
collaborate in the middle," Leavitt said. "I'll leave it a better place 
than I found it. ... I'll give it my all."

Bush said Leavitt, a former chairman of the National Governors Association, 
has "a strong environmental record, a strong desire to improve what has 
taken place in the last three decades," and also "understands the 
importance of clear standards in environmental policy."

Leavitt would take office, if he wins confirmation from the Senate, at a 
time when Democrats have a 2-1 advantage over Bush among people asked who 
they trust to do a better job on the environment, according to a recent poll.

Bush's choice to succeed Whitman was met with immediate praise from 
industry groups and congressional Republicans, while environmental groups 
and Senate Democrats were opposed or at least skeptical.

Leavitt won't face confirmation until after the Senate returns from its 
summer break in September.

Whitman earned the respect of environmentalists during her tenure as New 
Jersey governor, and her appointment in 2001 was seen as a sign of Bush's 
own moderation on the environment.

Instead, her resignation - after 2 1/2 years marked by confrontations with 
the White House and other administration officials who saw energy 
development as a bigger priority - has been used by Bush's opponents to 
depict him as environment-unfriendly.

One thing Leavitt shares with Whitman is her fondness for giving states a 
bigger role in environmental regulation.

"He respects the ability of state and local government to meet those 
standards, he rejects the old ways of command and control from above," Bush 
said in Denver after spending a day promoting his plan for thinning forests 
to prevent wildfires. Bush has scheduled three more trips with 
environmental themes this month in Oregon, California and Washington state.

The Utah governor said he shares Bush's enthusiasm for technological 
approaches for improving the environment, but recognizes with environmental 
matters there is often "an economic imperative that we're dealing with in 
the global economy and that's to do it less expensively."

Leavitt, 52, would leave Utah a year before his third four-year term ends. 
He is fond of speaking about his ideas for increasing environmental 
cooperation among federal, state and local officials. The environmental 
issues he has focused on have mostly concerned public lands.

Leavitt co-chaired the Western Regional Air Partnership of states, tribes, 
environmentalists and industry to reduce brown haze over the Grand Canyon, 
and he fought plans to build a temporary storage facility for high-level 
nuclear waste on an Indian reservation in western Utah.

He cut several environmental deals with the Bush administration, most 
recently settling a long-standing dispute over ownership of roads across 
federal land. He negotiated exchanges of state and federal land, some of 
them questioned by Interior Department auditors.

He advocated a major highway extension through wetlands and wildlife 
habitat near the Great Salt Lake, only to have the 10th Circuit U.S. Court 
of Appeals halt the project when it said the Army Corps of Engineers didn't 
pay enough attention to wildlife needs or look at alternatives like mass 
transit.

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