EPA official quits amid e-mail scrutiny

A senior Environmental Protection Agency official overseeing states in the West and Great Plains resigned Friday, amid intense congressional scrutiny over how EPA appointees have used personal e-mail addresses to conduct official business.

Region 8 administrator James Martin, whose office has jurisdiction over Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and 27 tribal nations, resigned “for personal reasons” according to EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson.

More health and science news

Updates to psychiatry’s guidebook change criteria for ADHD, autism

Lena H. Sun

Major changes to the DSM, which clinicians use to diagnose mental disorders, may have broad impact.

Senate panel backs pick to head EPA

Lenny Bernstein

Republicans drop their boycott of a vote, sending Gina McCarthy’s nomination to the Senate floor.

Oregon scientists get stem cells from cloned human embryos

David Brown

A research team in Oregon has produced embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos.

Former EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson had come under scrutiny for sending e-mails under the alias Richard Windsor, an account she named after her family dog. Now members of Congress are probing why acting EPA administrator Bob Perciasepe sent an e-mail to agency colleagues regarding hydraulic fracking from a personal account.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member David Vitter (R-La.), who had been probing Martin’s activities along with House Republicans, said in a statement Tuesday, “Region 8 Administrator Martin is likely resigning this week in part because of the open investigation about his use of a non-official e-mail account to conduct official business.”

“Now we know that Lisa Jackson’s acting replacement, Bob Perciasepe, appears to have been doing the same thing to dodge the agency’s mandatory recordkeeping policy,” Vitter added. “EPA owes us all some answers about their absolute disregard for transparency, especially from their acting administrator or any potential nominee to be administrator.”