Conservatives and Conservation

Christine Todd Whitman, head of the EPA from 2001 to 2003 and an honorary board member of Republicans for Environmental Protection, was online Friday, April 20, 11 a.m. ET to discuss her work with the EPA, her environmental and energy consulting and the conservative conservationist movement.

The transcript follows.

Whitman served as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003. Before that, she served for seven years as Governor of New Jersey, the first woman elected to that position in state history. Whitman is now the president of the Whitman Strategy Group, a consulting firm that specializes in government relations and environmental and energy issues, and is co-chair of the National Smart Growth Council.

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Christine Todd Whitman: Environmentalism is basically a Republican issue -- you go back to Teddy Roosevelt and National Parks, the EPA was started by Richard Nixon, and the vast majority of the regulations that underpin how we protect the environment today were signed by GOP presidents and the Democrats in Congress, and it's that kind of bipartisan approach that we need and is desperately lacking today.

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Washington, D.C.: Ms. Whitman: Economists seem to agree that the most efficient way to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be a flat emissions tax ("carbon tax"). This would avoid complicated regulations full of loopholes and silly laws like banning incandescent bulbs, as well as stimulating the market to develop new solutions. Yet politicians of both parties are very wary of the idea because it puts the price of emissions right under consumers' noses. Do you think conservative conservationists will be the ones to finally rally behind a carbon tax as the most logical and market-friendly solution, now that momentum for doing something about climate change seems to have reached critical mass?

Christine Todd Whitman: It's certainly true that what affects Americans behavior fastest is a hit in the pocketbook, and a tax on carbon use would get Americans thinking about how to reduce their footprint, but I really don't see a carbon tax passing at this time. The bills currently moving through Congress are all based on a cap-and-trade approach. None of them really look to a carbon tax.

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Arlington, Va.: I was talking to a friend of mine who worked as a congressional staffer a few years ago about how partisan environmental issues are in Congress. He said it was far less Republican vs. Democrat and much more individual regions of the country versus other regions. Would you agree?

Christine Todd Whitman: Yes, absolutely true if you look at it. First let's go back to climate change and the Kyoto Protocol. When the Clinton administration first negotiated the Kyoto protocol, it was voted down 95-0. And they never went back, they never tried to get it ratified again. And they never tried to regulate carbon through the EPA. So this is not a partisan issue. It's about whether you're from a coal-producing state, what impacts your constituents the most. My fear now is, however, because environmentalism and climate change is a more mainstream issue, that you'll see this debated on the Hill, that you'll see provisions put in at the last minute that are so overreaching they'll ensure defeat, in order to preserve the issue for 2008. And we all lose when that happens.

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Washington, D.C.: Whether you supported Kyoto or not, do you think in retrospect that if the U.S. had committed to meet targets, we would be farther ahead in the fight against global warming? Thanks.

Christine Todd Whitman: Certainly if the U.S. were taking mandatory action to reduce gas emissions, we would be doing something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Would that reduce the world's problems? I don't think so. China is projected to pass the United States and in the next 15 years be the biggest source of greenhouse gases. Kyoto did not capture China, did not capture India, and without bringing in the developing world will not solving the problems. And what's interesting is that many of the countries that did ratify Kyoto are having enormous difficulties in reaching the targets. There's going to be another round of Kyoto negotiated, and it might look very different than what we have today.

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Bethlehem, Pa.: Hi. Please forgive my ignorance, but why was your tenure so short?

Christine Todd Whitman: Two things, really. My husband and I actually like each other and did not enjoy a bifurcated marriage -- he had to stay in New Jersey for his business and weekends just weren't enough. But the timing was based on a regulation I'd been working on for two years and was going to be decided in a way I wasn't comfortable with. Recognizing that the president was the one who was elected and could set policy as he wanted, I felt he had a right to have an administrator who could carry it out in good conscience, and I couldn't of. The policy was new source review within the Clean Air Act. I fully believed the regulation needed more definition, but how you defined this piece of it was crucial to a number of cases against facilities who had been bad actors. The ultimate decision, it was clear to me, would not have protected the cases. And it didn't, the administration set the numbers where I wasn't comfortable, and they lost in court. And it stays where it was, unfortunately.

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Eau Claire, Wis.: Can you please comment on your statement that air quality around the 9/11 site was safe, given the extensive lung damage now evident in workers responding to the tragedy?

Christine Todd Whitman: Yes, absolutely. The message was difficult to deliver because it was two-pronged. The air quality in Lower Manhattan was safe to breathe, based on everything the scientists were telling us, but constantly we said that first responders absolutely should be wearing respirators. However, in Lower Manhattan in general, we could not detect elevated levels of problematic chemicals that indicated long-term health problems. It's difficult to deliver a two-pronged message like that in a time of crisis and people don't always hear the other part, but we also communicated directly with the agencies working at the site and even though we collected every respirator we could get from all across the country, we couldn't force workers to wear them.

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Fort Meade, Md.: Hello. My question is this: Did you by chance hear the speech by Arnold Schwarzenegger on being a "guiltless green" on April 12, 2007? If so, your thoughts if any?

Christine Todd Whitman: Unfortunately I didn't hear the speech, but certainly Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a leader on environmental issues.

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Bethesda, Md.: As a liberal who's tried (mostly in vain) for a decade to get my right-leaning countrymen to listen to scientists rather than industry lobbyists regarding climate change, it is belatedly heartening to see conservatives waking up to conserving our biosphere. Could you explain to me why this was not a "conservative value" from the start?

Christine Todd Whitman: No, because I think it is, frankly. I agree this would be a conservative value, and I was very glad to see some evangelical leaders coming forward and saying just that. And now you have business leaders and even military leaders focusing on the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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St. Mary's City, Md.: Would you agree that more conservatives might focus on environmental issues if it were not for the influence of the religious right? In recent months, a split has developed among prominent evangelical Christians in America on the issue of global warming. The ones who deny or dismiss the issue tend to be fundamentalists or Biblical literalists, and these are the ones who have made their influence felt in the GOP.

Christine Todd Whitman: You certainly can't deny that extreme positions seem to capture the media and be defining the party. I think the Democrats see the same pressure from the far left. But now you have Evangelical leaders who recognize that this issues transcends politics, that God gave us this world for those who take the bible literally, and that we have a God-given mission to protect it. However people come to the realization that we need to protect the Earth, I wholeheartedly accept that change.

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Bethesda, Md.: I often tell Republicans about Republicans for Environmental Protection's telling abstention from endorsing anyone in the 2004 presidential election, because of Mr. Bush's destructive environmental policies. They generally give me either a blank stare or respond to the effect that "it must be some left-wing front group who've adopted a misleading name." May I have you on record that you all are "real Republicans"? I'd be much obliged.

Christine Todd Whitman: Absolutely. In fact I've been very active in a Political Action Committee that works very closely with that group, hyperlink them and promote them however we can. To my mind environmentalism is very much a Republican issue and always has been.

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Anonymous: You saw first-hand the tendency of many key Republicans to follow through on their basic philosophy of deregulating business, even when it comes to the environment. Will you support Republicans who continue to favor the interest of deregulation over protecting the environment?

Christine Todd Whitman: I think the thing we have to be careful about is to always assume that deregulation immediately and inevitably makes an adverse environmental impact. I believe we need strong regulations and enforcement, but there are ways to positively engage the private sector that get us even greater environmental benefits, and where we can do that we should.

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Groningen, The Netherlands: Christine, have you heard that Canada may want to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate and, therefore, break with Kyoto? What does this mean for Kyoto and for environmentalists? Is Kyoto dead?

Christine Todd Whitman: What this recognizes is that it's been very hard for many of those who signed the protocol to meet the targets, or budgets as they call them. I don't know whether Kyoto per se is dead, but I do not believe that increased action on the issue of climate change is dead. I think you will continue to see movement and action, but it may not be under the aegis of the Kyoto protocol as we know it.

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Santa Barbara, Calif.: What progress has the EPA made on cleaning up the Superfund sites? There are more than 1,000 recognized sites still awaiting cleanup, correct? How can we speed up the cleanup efforts?

Christine Todd Whitman: Cleanup is continuing regularly on a manual basis. The challenge is that many of the sites are more complicated than in the past, the easy ones have been cleaned up, and the cost is going up all the time. Several years ago, in the previous administration, the tax that helped fund Superfund cleanup was discontinued and hasn't been reinstated by Congress, so the money for cleanups has to come from the overall EPA budget. They have continued to put money toward cleanups and sites, but as I said, because the sites are so complicated, they take longer to clean up.

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Roseland, N.J.: Good morning governor. We miss you here in Essex County! You resigned as head of the EPA in May of 2003. It was around that time that the agency declared it lacked the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, a position since refuted by the Supreme Court. Could you talk to us about your role in that decision, if any, and whether it impacted your decision to resign? Looking back at it now, do you think the administration's position was the right one?

Christine Todd Whitman: Well, first of all, as I said earlier my decision to resign was prompted more directly by the New Source Review reform. I have long felt we need to regulate carbon, been a supporter of that, and I was disappointed when the President changed his decision. I wasn't surprised by the Supreme Court's decision, and I hope it means we'll see more action by the agency.

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Red Bank, N.J.: Boston Globe, 2002: ``But Whitman, in a statement, defended the new rules and the proposed changes to a program called '' New Source Review,'' or NSR. ''EPA is taking actions now to improve NSR and thereby encourage emissions reductions,'' Whitman said. So did you defend rules you privately opposed?

Christine Todd Whitman: No, that first set of New Source Review regulations did not impact the utility industry. Those were minor changes that affected other industry emitters, with which I was comfortable. It was the next set of changes to NSR, which were directed at the utility industry, with which I was concerned.

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Marlboro, N.J.: Hi Governor Whitman: Is environmental policy a state issue or a national one?

Christine Todd Whitman: It's both. The federal government handles some issues that handle every state. Nature does not always observe geopolitical bounds, and air emissions move from one state to the next. That's where the federal government has an appropriate role. States should always be able to be more protective of the environment if they so choose.

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Laurel, MD: The underlying problem for all environmental issues is current human population levels and future growth potential. However, in the U.S., this topic is rarely addressed. Do you see this changing in the future or will the topic always be too politically dangerous for discussion?

Christine Todd Whitman: That is a topic that is always going to be extremely politically sensitive, and there are things we can do to direct where development occurs to accommodate population growth and shifts. I don't think we'll ever see -- nor would I want to see -- a federal policy with birth control that will determine the number of births you can have. And I don't think you'll see it in the developing countries. So we have to be smarter about how we manage that growth.

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New York: While ethanol is very promising for lessening our demand for foreign oil, it does nothing to address the issue of carbon emissions. President Bush, with the support of grain producing states, seems to strongly support ethanol use. Is the EPA taking steps to raise awareness that ethanol is not the "answer" to our fossil fuel addiction unless it is used in conjunction with hybrid technology, with the eventual goal of an entirely new source of fuel (i.e. hydrogen)?

Christine Todd Whitman: The federal government is putting a lot of money into hydrogen fuel cell technology. But I've been away from the agency long enough now that I don't know what they're saying in terms of biofuels vs. hydrogen, except that there is a general feeling that hydrogen holds out greater promise of reducing greenhouse gas emissions than any of the biofuels.

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Fort Meade, Md.: Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues at EPA in any other groups or programs?

Christine Todd Whitman: I talk from time to time with people with whom I worked at the agency who are still there as well as those who are left, and in fact my business, the Whitman Strategy Group includes my four partners, all of whom were at the agency with me. We do a lot of work in the environmental arena, so I keep in touch with members of various environmental groups through at.

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San Francisco: Thank you for joining us for a chat today, Ms. Whitman. Do you think the GOP will recover from the damage to the environment done by the Bush administration, specifically in the areas of Healthy Forests and Clean Skies?

Christine Todd Whitman: First of all it's important to recognize that the administration's record has not been a totally negative one as it relates to the environment. In fact the rule that we promulgated before I left the agency that regulated emissions from non-road diesel engines was hailed at the time by the NRDC as perhaps one of the most important things for human health since lead was removed from gasoline. On the issue of healthy forests, there is still a lot of debate about the best way to handle forest fires and to protect communities. It's my hope Republicans will understand and be proud of our overall history, which I've mentioned before, on the environment, and will continue to press this administration and others for more environmental progress.

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Los Angeles: Indeed Republicans have crafted much of our environmental legislation historically. But what's next? I've seen little from Republican candidates on how they'd manage our environment judiciously. We have some major issues in front of us, and none seem particularly easy to solve.

Christine Todd Whitman: This is where the public has a real role to play. We should be asking our candidates what their position is on the environment. We should press them for real answers and discussions. The frustrating thing is that any time you have an open-ended poll asking Americans to list their top ten issues, we never list the environment. Until we do, and we start telling our elected leaders that this is important, they won't take it as seriously as they need to.

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Portland: Do you see a trend in industries that are going green for environmental reasons also are creating more green for their shareholders?

Christine Todd Whitman: Absolutely. That's one of the most encouraging things we see today is the number of businesses who are recognizing the green in going green. The EPA has a program called climate leaders that's voluntary and it has more than 110 businesses participating who have agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions that would have an impact equivalent to removing 7 million cars from our roads. United Technologies, on whose board I currently serve, has reduced its absolute energy use by 19 percent in the past ten years while increasing their revenues by 80 percent. There are more and more businesses that are recognizing that being a good corporate environmental citizen is good for business and that consumers appreciate it.

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Ottawa, Canada: Since it is difficult (some say impossible) to meet Kyoto targets, would it be better to try and negotiate a new agreement that would include all countries? How realistic is it to believe that a new agreement could be reached?

Christine Todd Whitman: Clearly these kinds of international negotiations are enormously difficult, but this has to be a global solution, ultimately. I used to ask my colleague from Japan if we couldn't have another conference and get a "Tokyo" protocol because in this country "Kyoto" had become a bad word. I think we will see another international discussion an agreement, but I think there will be more activity where various countries in a region come together to set protocols. But there does seem to be general global recognition now that everyone has to be engaged.

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Durham, N.C.: Do you not think that to preserve the planet's ecosystems in something close to their current forms that we will need to actively block sunlight, not just reduce greenhouse emissions?

Christine Todd Whitman: Well we certainly need to replace the hole in the ozone layer. There's not much question about that. We've made some progress, but science is telling us there's more that we need to do. One aspect of all these discussions that doesn't get much coverage is land-use planning, which has an enormous impact on climate change. The issues are complicated and the answers aren't easy, but that doesn't mean we don't have an obligation and a very real need to address them.

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Prescott, Ariz.: Why do Republicans denigrate scientists so frequently? It doesn't matter if they study global warming, salmon, arsenic, or the effects of smog; Republicans attack the messenger. Why not just purge scientists if they don't like what they are getting from them.

Christine Todd Whitman: Frankly, not all Republicans hate scientists. Unfortunately it's a few leaders today in Congress who are the most skeptical, but there are a lot of republicans who have a deep respect for scientists and science, and in fact, there are scientists who are Republicans. So I'd be slow to brand all Republicans as science-haters.

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Minneapolis: Some speak of a new "Manhattan Project" or "moon shot" for our Federal Government to quickly arrive at solutions to Global Warming while others opt to rely on the market forces of the private sector to respond. What role do you think the Federal Government should have in stimulating R+D in non-polluting energy sources to adequately address Global Warming?

Christine Todd Whitman: I think one of the fastest, best things the government could do to spur private sector research and development, would be to establish a nationwide cap on carbon. Whether it's done through a carbon tax or a cap and trade system, once industry knows what the standards are going to be and understands there will be penalties to pay if they don't meet those standards, but are given flexibility in how they reach them, they will be enormously inventive. In the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 we saw the creation of the acid rain trading program. When we looked back at that program in 2003 to see how effective it had been we found that by having given industry an economic incentive to reduce their SO2 emissions they had done so faster than called for in the regulation, they had reduced those emissions below what was called for in the regulations and they'd done it about half the anticipated cost. Certainty as to both targets and consequences can have a very positive outcome.

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Christine Todd Whitman: I'm delighted to see as many informed and interested people on issues of the environment, and I only hope we can stimulate this level of discussion on a broader political basis.

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