Tennesseans have mixed reactions on EPA nominee

Tennesseans have
mixed reactions
on EPA nominee

By ANNE PADNE
Staff Writer

President Bush's nomination
of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to
head the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency drew guarded reac-
tions, and a few negative ones, in
Tennessee yesterday.

Wayne Scharber, with the
Tennessee Chamber of Com-
merce and Industry, said he'll
have to wait to see how Leavitt
operates the nation's environ-
mental agency.

"I do like the statement that
he's going to allow states to have
authority, so long as those are
not additional authorities that
become unfounded mandates,"
Scharber said yesterday.

Leavitt, a Republican gover-
nor, said he wants states to have
a bigger role in environmental
regulations, just as his predeces-
sor did.

Former EPA administrator
Christie Whitman, a former
Republican governor of New
Jersey, resigned from the EPA
after 2½ years. She sometimes
had conflicts with the Bush
administration, which saw
energy development as a larger
priority.

Will Callaway, Tennessee
Environmental Council execu-
tive director, said he doesn't
believe that it's important who is
in the job.

"They could appoint Mickey
Mouse to this post and it would
not matter as long as the White
House is calling the shots regard-
ing environmental policy.

"This administration does not
have an environmental policy
other than to significantly reduce
the regulations that control pol-
lution in this country. Mr. Bush is
not willing to take the necessary
steps to protect our environ-
ment."

Callaway said he sees a "huge
contradiction" in the administra-
tion's talk about more local
authority.

"They believe the states
should enforce regulations, yet
when states challenged an EPA
decision, this White House
stated that EPA knows what it's
doing."

Several states along with envi-
ronmental groups have gone to
court over the EPA's decision to
allow more laxity in pollution
standards for older power plants,
even after they are retooled.
Utah is one of the states that
intervened on behalf of the EPA.

"A number of states have said
they don't want the EPA-prom-
ulgated rules, yet the EPA still is
trying to push that on the states,"
Callaway said.

John Noel of Williamson
County said the Western gover-
nor's talk of a moderate agenda
doesn't fit with his actions, "but,
as in all cases of governmental
leaders, I would like to give him
the benefit of the doubt."

"Hopefully he will be a good
steward of the environment."

Noel, president of the South-
ern Alliance for Clean Energy,
said he is leery about talk of leav-
ing regulations up to the states.

"How can you regulate air
quality at the state level when air
pollution has no boundaries?

"Environmentally, state-by-state
action often becomes entangled.
Take for example the Pigeon
River, when North Carolina pol-
luted water and it flowed into
East Tennessee and affected
Tennessee communities.

"I think it's a bad idea and bad
precedent. That kind of leader-
ship and thinking will damage
the environment."