Former EPA Heads: Bush, Johnson Abandoned Core Mission, Left Broken, Demoralized Agency Behind

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PHILADELPHIA— Former directors of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say current administrator Stephen L. Johnson and the Bush administration have abdicated their lead roles in protecting the environment and left the agency weak and demoralized. “For a long time, conservatives have said follow the science, and in the climate-change decision, (EPA) did not follow the science — it abdicated leadership and responsibility,” William K. Reilly, who led the EPA under President George H.W. Bush, told The Philadelphia Inquirer for a series that started Sunday. “The country and the environment have been on hold for eight years.”

Johnson leaves office as one of the president’s most loyal cabinet members. But his decisions alarmed environmentalists and infuriated his own scientists. Democrats earlier called for his resignation. “Here we see a real failure of leadership,” said Russell Train, EPA administrator during the Nixon and Ford eras. “EPA has become a nonentity.”

Johnson said that EPA chiefs can rarely please everyone. “There’s always those who say you haven’t gone far enough, and others who say you’ve gone too far,” he said. “I won’t accept the criticism that I didn’t care about or didn’t do anything to advance the environment.”

EPA funding fell dramatically during his tenure, from $8 billion when he stepped into the post in 2005 to a proposed $7.1 billion for 2009. Insight into Johnson’s vision for the EPA can be gleaned in a statement he submitted this year to a Senate committee. On a list of top goals, Johnson wrote that the top priority was clean energy, particularly drilling for “thousands of new oil and gas wells” on tribal and federal lands. Homeland security was No. 2 on the list. Environmental enforcement and sound science ranked ninth and 10th.

Ed. - emphasis added.

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http://www.timesleader.com/news/Ex-EPA_leaders__Bush_rsquo_s_environmental_legacy_weak_12-08-2008.html