Interview: Christine Todd Whitman

In fact, the science shows that it was appropriate, but the other parts of the study that we did on cost effectiveness really raised up and reaffirmed the concerns I had about how costly it was going to be to small- and mid-sized water companies and what the potential impact to the people drinking water from those water companies was, and what we needed to do to provide more dollars and more flexibility to help those water companies get there. Because unintended consequences are real.

MONITOR: How come you picked brownfields and clean air for your priorities right now?

WHITMAN: And water. The watershed approach is very important. Because I see my role here as ensuring that when we leave we can say that the nation's air is cleaner, water purer, and land better protected than it was when we started. It was something that I did, had as my mantra as a governor and I still believe it to be important and the president believes it to be important.

MONITOR: Have you been able to take the New Jersey model and transfer it to the federal level? Was that even an intent of yours?

WHITMAN: That wasn't an intent, because one of the things I learned as governor, too, is that every state is very different, and even within states it's very different. Obviously, what we did in this, where we have successes, I can bring those ideas and I can throw them out to the table and if there's something to be looked at that we did in New Jersey that can be crafted or changed in a way that would apply to other places, then great, I certainly will encourage people to look at it. I'm proud of our record, but I wouldn't presume to try to implement the New Jersey program on or force that on anybody.

MONITOR: Can I ask you briefly about the Schaeffer resignation? (Eric Schaeffer, a top EPA enforcement official, resigned last month). Do you think that's damaged the credibility of the EPA? What's the ripple effect of that?

WHITMAN: It's very hard for me to judge. The problem here is we knew that he was leaving. He'd had that job lined up for five weeks anyway, prior to his letter. So I'm not sure what the motivation was for blast-faxing out the resignation letter to a thousand people. I'm sure he's very concerned. I don't question his concern about issues, and we share them. We disagree on his interpretation of what we're trying to do. And that's not unexpected.

There are certainly those within the agency who have that same attitude, that you have to be, that command and control, this is the way we've done it for 32 years, this is the only way to do it. Not even necessarily the best.

What we're saying is, you need to have the enforcement ability, and you need to be able to vigorously enforce, but we can get more if you get the industries and the businesses to the table early on. If we're not spending our time and money in the courts and with lawyers we're far better off and we get better results and that's what we're about is results.

This agency, like all of government, gets sometimes very, very hung up in process and uses process as a way to judge success, and what I want to see is progress, and that's why we're starting an environmental report card. We're in the process of working on an environmental report card that we'll be sharing with the public. We will measure ourselves every year.

MONITOR: That's part of the accountability thing from the president?

WHITMAN: It's something we decided to do. They didn't ask us to do this. But we said this is how we think we can best show the public. They have the right to know, of all the things we're demanding of people, is it making a difference, or isn't it?

MONITOR: Do you have a quick one liner for the first year here and how you felt about it?

WHITMAN: Roller coaster? It's definitely been a roller coaster, but satisfying. At the end of the day, these issues are very important so it's worth the ride.

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