Word: epa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...after President Reagan tapped him to succeed ousted EPA Administrator Anne Burford, Ruckelshaus was already hard at work trying to raise the agency's reputation, and employee morale, from the ashes. "Ruck," as his friends call him, is a tall, witty lawyer with broad government experience and a reputation for integrity and administrative astuteness. He is expected to step up enforcement against corporate polluters, clean up toxic-waste dumps, beef up the agency's management and budget, and repair its shattered relationship with Congress. Ruckelshaus was the nearly unanimous choice of top White House officials. Said one Reagan...
...direct access to the President. Reagan readily agreed. Announcing the appointment, the President said he thought the Administration had a good environmental record but conceded, "I believe we can do better." The White House also moved to provide Ruckelshaus with a clean slate, asking for the resignations of five EPA officials, including four of Burford's top-ranking assistants, caught in the crossfire of allegations and suspicions on Capitol Hill: Acting Administrator John Hernandez Jr., General Counsel Robert Perry, Assistant Administrator John Todhunter and Chief of Staff John Daniel...
Congressional committees continued to stumble over one another last week in their sometimes overzealous efforts to keep "Sewergate" sizzling. Democrats culled EPA documents, looking for a trail of evidence that would lead to the White House. On Thursday the White House, which had long insisted that its files contained no internal reports on the notorious Stringfellow toxic dump in California, admitted that it did have two EPA reports confirming that Burford prepared to announce a grant to clean up Stringfellow last year but changed her mind at the last minute. There have been charges that the Administration delayed the cleanup...
Both Congress and the EPA tried to take advantage of the rising public concern over hazardous wastes. Lawmakers introduced three bills designed to tighten federal control of the poisons and close the loopholes detailed in an alarming new congressional report. The EPA weighed in with its own announcement tightening controls on dioxin and other toxic substances. Compiled during three years by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the new study warns that 255 million to 275 million tons of chemical poisons are being dumped in the U.S. every year, a ton for every person. It estimates that it will cost...
...search for a blue-ribbon successor for the top job, a tricky matter since the nominee must be enough of an environmental advocate to withstand congressional scrutiny and yet fit in with the President's more minimalist approach to regulation. The leading contender was William Ruckelshaus, the first EPA administrator under President Nixon and now a senior vice president of Weyerhaeuser, a wood and paper company. But his industry connections may make him suspect to environmentalists. Said Democratic Congressman Edward Markey: "What we clearly need now is a Mr. Clean, with no ties to industry and no conflicts...