EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Resigns

After nearly four years, Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has announced her departure from the nation’s top environmental post. Jackson has said she will step down following President Obama’s State of the Union address in January. Jackson, the former commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, has often been a polarizing figure to many in the environmental and business communities. Under her, the agency has pursued an aggressive agenda including limiting mercury and other emissions from coal-fired power plants, limits on fine particulate matter, proscriptive regulations on stormwater runoff, and the declaration the climate change poses a threat to public health and the environment. The president has not yet chosen a successor at the EPA, but the identity of Jackson’s successor has been the topic of much speculation, and several names have emerged as frontrunners for the job. Bob Perciasepe, the agency’s deputy administrator, Jackson’s number two and right hand is often on the top of the list; Perciasepe is past head of the Office of Water and the former chief operating officer at the National Audubon Society. The other name on top of most lists is Gina McCarthy, head of the Office of Air and Radiation, and someone who has often filled in for Jackson at congressional committee hearings. Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a name many AGC members will recognize has also been named as a possible successor, especially with the Obama Administration’s potential to refocus on regulatory solutions to climate change in his second administration. Other names mentioned include former New Jersey environmental commissioner Bradley Campbell, former head of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection Kathleen McGinty, and Heather Zichal, a top aide on energy and environmental issues in the Obama White House and popular among environmentalists. For more information, please contact Scott Berry at (703) 837-5321 or berrys@agc.org.