President-elect Barack Obama's appointments of Tom Vilsack, Lisa Jackson and Ken Salazar are being hailed in some quarters as a "Green Dream Team". Some environmentalists, however, are seeing the end of a love affair that began with Obama's pre-election promises and conclude with a selection of individuals whose environmental record is somewhat questionable.
Take, for example, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, the future agriculture secretary. Supporters say he knows production agriculture, and has a handle on the changes needed to insure its future profitability. Opponents see this as a boost to giant agribusiness firms like Monsanto, and some advocates of organic food like the Cornucopia Institute fear this biotechnology bias will lead to more the demise of small dairy farms and the rise of genetically modified foods.
Ignoring the 2006 scandal surrounding Iowa's Workforce Report, which Vilsack refused to make public - and 2007 allegations that he sold his presidential endorsement to the Clintons - the organic community fears not only his ties with the biotechnology industry (and by extension such corporations as Monsanto) but his support of corn and soy-based biofuels, already proven to be an environmental and food-supply disaster.
Or look at EPA future head Lisa Jackson, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Jackson, a graduate of Princeton University with a degree in chemical engineering, spent 16 years at the EPA in Washington and in New York before being hired at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in 2002 (a job she left recently to become New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's head of staff).
Supporters say she did a remarkable job in an agency beset by state budget cuts and some of the worst hazardous waste sites in the nation. Opponents - specifically Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals committed to the environment, say Jackson's record as head of the New Jersey DEP doesn't warrant the appointment.
Citing an EPA inspector general report whose findings suggest the New Jersey DEP didn't push for cleanup at seven designated sites, PEER says the DEP, under Jackson, has also failed to adopt adequate regulations to protect wildlife against pesticides and other chemicals. PEER also targets DEP failure to consistently meet greenhouse gas emissions targets.
Her harshest critics, including a former co-worker, say she was too cozy with the very industries she was charged with regulating, withheld information from the public, and generally failed to live up to her mandate as head of the DEP. This is not a stunning recommendation for someone who will head the EPA, an agency already charged with falling down on the job under the Bush administration.
Lastly, Obama's selection of Senator Ken Salazar (D - Colorado) for Interior Secretary has environmentalists seething, especially after their letter (signed by 150 different groups) backing Congressman Raul M. Grijalva (D - Arizona) was ignored.
The Center for Biological Diversity's Kieran Suckling said it best: "Ken Salazar is very closely tied to ranching and mining and very traditional, old-time, Western, extraction industries. We were promised that an Obama presidency would bring change."
Proponents, mostly from the mining and agriculture industries, are delighted by the choice. This writer sees, in Salazar, a pragmatic acceptance of the need for sustainability, which often runs in the face of old-time environmentalism. Salazar will be good for rural communities, creating jobs and wealth, but in a Salazar-dominated Interior, the deer, birds, wolves, fish and hard-line environmentalists will find it tough going indeed.
Related Reading:
Steve Chu, Energy Secretary
Al Gore: The Climate for Change
