Public employees nominate “Green Dream Team” for EPA

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is urging President-elect Obama to rebuild the battered and demoralized U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by appointing whistleblowers and leaders with the courage to resist political pressure. PEER has nominated a slate that includes Mary Gade for Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Earlier this year Gade was forced from her position as top administrator for the Great Lakes region after she pressured Dow Chemical to cleanup dioxin contamination in the Saginaw Bay Watershed.

Here’s the EPA “Green Dream Team” as proposed by PEER:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as EPA Administrator. If ever EPA needed a forceful advocate at the helm, it is now. Kennedy has been a leader in fights against destructive mountain-top removal mining, toxic contamination of neighborhoods and lax enforcement of pollution laws;

Mary Gade for the Assistant Administrator (AA) for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Earlier this year, Gade was forced out of a top EPA position by the Bush White House for pursuing prosecution of toxic violations against Dow Chemical;

Bruce Buckheit as AA for Air and Radiation. Buckheit, the agency’s former Director of its air enforcement division resigned in 2004 in protest of Bush administration obstruction of pollution prosecution and clean-up efforts directed against the nation’s dirtiest power-plants;

Doug Thompson as AA for Water Programs. Thompson, a biologist, previously headed agency wetlands protection and water enforcement efforts in New England, until he resigned in 2005;

Bill Hirzy as AA for Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. Hirzy, a long-time agency chemist, has been a leading voice for greater scientific integrity in EPA decision-making;

Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo as AA for International Affairs. She is one of EPA’s most noted advocates for social justice and has served as a leader of EPA’s International Activities Office;

Richard Emory for Inspector General. Emory is a former whistleblower and enforcement expert. He has served in several managerial slots and is a former deputy Maryland Attorney General;

Scott West to head the Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training. West just retired as Supervisory Criminal Investigator and Special Agent-in-Charge Seattle Area Office after revealing how prosecution of a major Alaska oil spill was truncated;

Hugh Kaufman for National Superfund Ombudsman where he served as Chief Investigator until the office was abolished in 2002 on the orders of then-EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman following the World Trade Center attack.