Quick. Who’s the head of the Environmental Protection Agency?
Thomas L. Friedman, the New York Times columnist, bet Sunday that there weren’t 12 readers of the Times who could name this administrator. Nor could they “identify him in a police lineup,” Friedman asserted.
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For those millions of you who might lose Friedman’s bet, Muckety has done the research (thank you, Google) and learned that Stephen L. Johnson, 57, has been in charge of the agency since 2005.
A long-time E.P.A. employee, Johnson is the first agency scientist to head the agency. Environmental groups greeted his selection by President Bush with cautious optimism.
Stephen L. Johnson
“It would be hard to imagine a better choice coming from this administration,” Bradley Campbell, then the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, told the Times.
“But, I expect that he’ll be on a very short leash, with the real decisions being made at the Office of Management and Budget and the White House.”
Carol M. Browner, Johnson’s boss when she headed the E.P.A. during the Clinton administration, then praised her former employee.
“I don’t know if Johnson is a Democrat or Republican,” she said. “But he’s a very green guy, a truly committed environmentalist, from my experience.”
The honeymoon between Johnson and environmentalists ended fairly quickly.
Friedman wrote Sunday that the agency has been “neutered” by the president. Others have found fault with Johnson for not doing enough to resist policies that they say are damaging to the environment.
Particularly controversial was Johnson’s decision last year denying the right of 17 states to set their own auto emissions standards.
Johnson argued publicly that federal authority pre-empted the states’ authority. He said a single national policy was needed rather than “a confusing patchwork of state rules.”
Automakers praised his decision, saying that it would eliminate the confusion caused by differing state regulations.
State officials, especially those in California, countered by saying the decision departed from past practice and good science.
A congressional committee is investigating whether the White House overruled Johnson’s internal recommendations. The White House has refused to turn over to the committee documents related to the decision, citing executive privilege.
Johnson replaced Michael O. Leavitt, the former governor of Utah, who became the secretary of Health and Human Service. He was a more typical appointee, as presidents have often called on people with political experience to head the agency.
Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, and the first Bush appointee to lead the E.P.A., fit that description. She resigned following disagreements on policy with other Bush administrators.
William D. Ruckelshaus, became the agency’s first administrator in 1970. He served there before becoming acting director of the FBI and then deputy attorney general in 1973.
He resigned from the Department of Justice when he, along with then-Attorney General Elliot Richardson, refused to fire Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor.
A native of the Washington, D.C., area, Johnson graduated from Taylor University in Upland, Ind., with a B.A. in biology. He has a masters in pathology from George Washington University.
He joined the E.P.A. 27 years ago, and has held a variety of positions, including serving as the assistant administrator of E.P.A.’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances.
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