WisBusiness: EPA leader criticizes House GOP for undermining regulations

By Andy Szal

For WisBusiness.com

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson defended her agency’s initiatives under the Obama administration before a UW-Madison audience today, chastising House Republicans for a series of votes she says undermine the nation’s environmental regulations.

“It would have been easy to tell EPA to just sit and wait,” Jackson said of the economic downturn that accompanied the president into office in 2009.

“(But) he directed us to do our job,” Jackson said.

Jackson did not shy away from her agency’s goals, which included confronting climate change, improving control of conventional air and water pollution, targeting “under-regulated” toxics in consumer products and establishing “environmental justice” in vulnerable areas of the county.

But she said widespread claims about items that aren’t on the EPA’s radar — particularly greater regulation of small sources of pollution — have fostered distrust of the agency.

Jackson cited rumors on regulating dust and commercials charging that the agency is considering regulating livestock.

“If that’s the level of our discourse, then I think that’s very dangerous,” Jackson said.

She also criticized House Republicans, charging that they’ve taken upwards of 170 votes to restrict environmental protection this year, and arguing that the country is in jeopardy of rolling back those regulations for the first time since 1970.

She dubbed the House GOP approach “too dirty to fail,” arguing that rolling back regulations to grow the economy ignores the scale of the challenges facing the country.

Rather, she said, uniform regulation of large industries would foster job creation. She said new mercury standards set to be unveiled next month are alone expected to create 31,000 construction jobs and 9,000 additional permanent positions at the nation’s power plants.

Jackson said she hopes to return to the citizen-fueled, bipartisan environmental movement that followed the first Earth Day in 1970. She noted Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson’s role in establishing that first Earth Day, and praised the state’s work on environmental protection — particularly actions in the last session to rein in phosphorus levels.

“We can have a clean environment and a growing economy,” Jackson said.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce President Kurt Bauer called on Jackson to stop proposed EPA regulations that “are driving up costs on Wisconsin employers and delaying an economic recovery.”

“Federal laws, policies and proposals are by far the biggest cause of uncertainty for Wisconsin businesses,” Bauer said in a statement issued prior to Jackson’s visit to UW-Madison’s Union South.

He also called on Congress to pass a proposal from U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, and U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Sherwood, to put a moratorium on new federal regulations.