President Bush has chosen Utah Governor Mike Leavitt as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Some environmentalists say this nomination indicates that the Bush administration is no longer concerned about placating conservationists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
Transcript
President Bush has chosen Utah Governor Mike Leavitt as the new head of the
Environmental
Protection Agency. Some environmentalists say this nomination indicates that the Bush
administration is no longer concerned about placating conservationists. The Great
Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
If Leavitt is confirmed by the Senate, he will replace Christie Todd Whitman, who
resigned in
May.
Business leaders and Republicans describe Leavitt as a moderate and a consensus
builder.
Environmental groups, though, say Utah’s governor has a history of allowing
corporations to
pollute the state’s forests and waterways.
Scott Groene is the staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
“He’s a smart man and he’ll be very careful not to blunder by telling the public
what he’s doing if
he’s actually rolling back environmental protections. That’s certainly what we’ve
seen here in
Utah, is that he’ll take some fairly extreme actions but then he’ll manage to claim
the middle
ground with his rhetoric.”
Leavitt says he wants to give states a larger role in environmental regulation. His
confirmation
hearings will be scheduled when the Senate returns to Washington in September.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.