Christie Whitman Environmental Protection Agency Established: 1970 2003 Budget: $7.6 billion Full-time Employees: 17,600 Whitman's Salary: $154,700 Web Site: www.epa.gov Overall Grade: C- Back To Overview And Other Cabinet Grades

National Journal
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Friday, Jan. 24, 2003

When George W. Bush became president, most Republicans assumed that New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman would join his team. She had close personal ties to Bush and, as a moderate Republican woman from the Northeast, she could help diversify his Cabinet. But, as Whitman has publicly acknowledged, heading the Environmental Protection Agency wasn't her first choice. And ever since joining the agency, she has appeared to have one foot out the door.

The conventional wisdom about Whitman is that she is far more of an environmentalist than Bush is and that she's been forced to swallow the steady stream of pro-business, pro-development initiatives coming out of the White House. But, in reality, how "green" Whitman is or has ever been remains unclear. During her seven years as governor, her environmental record was mixed. And insiders say she was well aware of Bush's pro-business approach to environmental policy from their days of working together as members of the National Governors Association.

Other agencies boast of routinely rolling the EPA, and the bulk of the evidence indicates that the EPA's influence under Whitman is minimal. Whitman defends the role she plays in the development of Bush's controversial environmental initiatives, but she does so in such a way as to hint that she's just being a good soldier.

Whitman's initial forays into national and global environmental policy were public-relations disasters. At a 2001 meeting of environmental ministers from the G-8 industrialized nations, Whitman touted Bush's campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, which are linked to global warming. Soon after, however, Bush reversed himself and withdrew the United States from U.N. talks on the Kyoto climate-change treaty, making Whitman appear completely out of the loop on administration policy. Whitman also stirred up a hornet's nest when she considered weakening a Clinton-era rule that would have ratcheted down the amount of arsenic allowed in drinking water. Stung by furious criticism, Whitman quietly let the tougher arsenic rule go into effect. The president later described the arsenic incident as the "biggest mistake" of his administration's first year in office.

Since then, Whitman has kept her head down, issuing many of the EPA's most controversial initiatives through late-Friday-afternoon press releases, in an apparent attempt to attract as little attention as possible. Whitman hasn't been an eager cheerleader for the administration's pro-industry environmental policies. For example, she didn't attend the news conference announcing proposals to ease the air-pollution controls on coal-fired power plants that are being expanded or modernized.

Voters tend to give Bush some of his lowest marks for his handling of environmental issues. Republican observers and business lobbyists criticize Whitman for failing to do more to portray the Bush White House as a good steward of the environment. Whitman comes off as a reluctant team player.

Inside Influence Grade: D
Whitman's blue-blood ties to the Bush family date back to the 1960s and 1970s, when her father was New Jersey Republican Party chairman and her mother was vice chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Today, Whitman, 56, has built a close friendship with the president; she gave Bush his Scottish terrier, Barney, and is a frequent guest at Camp David.

Insiders say that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has backed her on some environmental issues. Early in the administration, however, Powell described Whitman as the White House's "wind dummy" -- the inanimate object that paratroopers throw out of an airplane to see which way the wind is blowing. Indeed, Whitman's personal ties to Bush don't seem to give her any real power over the administration's environmental policies, which are greatly influenced by the White House economic team and by the Energy and Commerce departments, among others. For example, Energy seems to have gained co-pilot status on air-pollution control policies. As a longtime EPA employee put it, "No one expects her to prevail every time, but the feeling here is that she's not particularly effective in mustering our best arguments and options, let alone in pressing them winningly within White House policy circles."

Examples abound of EPA's taking a backseat in interagency debates. After 9/11, the agency futilely argued for instituting federal controls over security at chemical-manufacturing plants. In 2001, the EPA attempted to issue a nationwide warning about the dangers of an asbestos-tainted home-insulation product, but the Office of Management and Budget overruled the agency. EPA's enforcement budget has suffered significant cuts. Meanwhile, Bush has authorized Energy and Commerce to take charge of global-warming policy, which had long been the responsibility of the EPA and the State Department. And in a move reminiscent of the Reagan administration, OMB has required the EPA to base its regulations on a new cost-benefit test that minimizes the value of the lives of Americans over 70.

Whitman's supporters insist she is a loyalist who wins more battles than would a moderate EPA administrator with fewer ties to Bush. But while her Clinton-era predecessor, Carol Browner, was known as a tough fighter for the agency, Whitman hasn't demonstrated similar skills.

Hill Clout Grade: C
In 2002 Senate hearings, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., described Whitman as the "best friend of the environment in the Bush administration" and went on to blast the White House's environmental policies. That exchange typified Whitman's relationship with the Senate when Democrats controlled it. They went easy on her but hard on Bush. Whitman's Hill testimony has tended to be rewritten beforehand by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Hill insiders say.

The EPA has pushed few new initiatives on Capitol Hill. The president's proposal to rewrite the Clean Air Act, dubbed "Clear Skies" by the White House, was introduced and promptly shelved by the last Congress, partly because Whitman and the White House did little to marshal their forces on Capitol Hill before releasing the proposal. Administration officials had not adequately briefed the lawmakers who could normally have been expected to support such a measure. As a result, Republican friends of the White House didn't try to help sell "Clear Skies" to the public.

Despite her good personal relations with Hill Democrats, Whitman locked horns last year with members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who complained that the EPA was sandbagging committee efforts to obtain information on reported cutbacks in the Superfund and air-pollution control programs. This year, she's likely to face a different set of problems with that committee. By any measure, the new chairman, Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., is far more conservative than Whitman and is likely to hold her accountable for policies that he considers too liberal. Whitman's relationship with Hill Republicans is so tenuous that those contacted by National Journal didn't want to talk about her, even on background. As one GOP staff member explained, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything."

Political Imperatives Grade: C
After an initial flourish in which the former New Jersey governor sometimes seemed to act like an environmental czar with the power to issue unilateral decrees, the White House reined her in. Some administration supporters complain that Whitman has spent most of her time playing defense instead of selling the public on a positive vision of the Bush environmental policy. But others note that the White House consciously tries to fly its pro-business environmental proposals under the radar, and Whitman has gladly gone along.

Whitman hasn't personally alienated the environmental community, but neither has she won any friends among the liberals who initially welcomed her appointment. "Her biggest challenge has been to try to put a happy face on the worst environmental record ever compiled by any administration," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. For all the grief she's taken from the environmental community over the administration's pro-industry policies, though, Whitman has not made many friends within business groups. Their leaders complain that she hasn't opened lines of communication.

Whitman does get points for hitting the campaign trail during the 2002 congressional elections. She's credited with raking in more political contributions than all but two other Cabinet members and with providing a moderate GOP patina for a host of Republican candidates.

Running The Department Grade: D
By reputation, the EPA has a strong, entrenched bureaucracy dedicated to implementing the nation's bedrock environmental laws. Under Clinton, Browner tapped the career staff to push the president's mandates. Whitman hasn't endeared herself to the department staff, nor has she whipped it into line to further the Bush administration's aims.

Agency staffers say they have little or no contact with Whitman, who has surrounded herself with a cadre of her former New Jersey aides who treat her -- as one EPA career official describes it -- like "the queen of the Meadowlands." It doesn't help agency morale that Whitman prefers to be called "governor" instead of "administrator."

Prime evidence that Whitman is disconnected from the agency emerged in June when the EPA submitted a report to the United Nations that concluded that human activity is causing the Earth's climate to change, despite Bush's earlier assertion that the science on global warming is still uncertain. Whitman said she had been unaware of the report until after it was issued.

Whitman has shifted her agency away from enforcing federal pollution laws and toward giving states more control over environmental programs. As governors, she and Bush supported giving states a bigger role in handling environmental laws, and the shift is backed by many in industry. But scaling back federal enforcement has triggered several high-level EPA resignations and demoralized many at the agency. Lois Shiffer, head of the Justice Department's Environmental Division under Clinton, said, "The laws require strong and effective environmental protection. And EPA seems to have taken a step backward on that."

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