Outspoken on issues including climate change and the need to protect poor communities from experiencing a disproportionate amount of environmental harm, Jackson pressed for limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants and on dumping mining waste into streams and rivers near mines.
The slew of rules the EPA enacted over the past four years included the first greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles, cuts in mercury and other toxic pollution from power plants and a tighter limit on soot, the nation’s most widespread deadly pollutant. Many congressional Republicans and business groups claimed Jackson was waging a “war on coal.” But she was a hero to the environmental community.
The president issued a statement praising Jackson.
“Under her leadership, the EPA has taken sensible and important steps to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink, including implementing the first national standard for harmful mercury pollution, taking important action to combat climate change under the Clean Air Act, and playing a key role in establishing historic fuel economy standards that will save the average American family thousands of dollars at the pump while also slashing carbon pollution,” Obama said.
Obama has not picked her successor, although two of the leading candidates work at the EPA: Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe and Gina McCarthy, who heads the agency’s air and radiation office. Jackson has told several people she considers Perciasepe well prepared to take the agency’s helm.
Both Perciasepe and McCarthy could face challenges in getting confirmed by the Senate since they helped craft many of the EPA’s policies during Obama’s first term. But they are also seen as career officials rather than political activists. Stephen Brown, vice president for federal government affairs at the oil refiner Tesoro Corp., said Perciasepe represents “a sound choice” because he “knows the job, the agency and the hurdles associated with both.”
Other possible successors include Mary D. Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board, and Kathleen McGinty, who headed the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Bill Clinton.
Sen. David Vitter (La.), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said Thursday he would seek a more business-friendly nominee to run the agency. “Moving forward I’ll be working with my colleagues in the Senate to make sure the new nominee is thoroughly vetted, puts sound scientific standards above political ideology and understands that EPA’s avalanche of regulations can crush the growth of American businesses,” he said in a statement.
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