| ENVIRONMENT
REPORT - Bush Chooses Utah Governor to Head the Environmental Protection
Agency
President Bush has nominated the governor of Utah, Mike
Leavitt, to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Christine Todd
Whitman resigned as administrator and left office in June.
Mister Leavitt, also a Republican, is fifty-two
years old. He has served the longest of all the current governors in
the United States. Utah voters first elected him to lead the western
state in nineteen-ninety-two. He is in his third term.
Mister Leavitt told the New York Times about
two of the environmental efforts he considers among his most successful.
One was his work with a group to reduce air pollution over the Grand
Canyon in Arizona and other national parks. That effort involved thirteen
states, thirteen Indian tribes and three federal agencies.
He also noted a major cleanup effort recently
completed to reclaim water from a copper mine near Salt Lake City. The
governor brought together environmentalists, government officials and
mining officials. As a result, he says, the project was completed in
just five years. It also avoided the need to spend huge amounts of federal
money.
Among other environmental issues, the governor
has opposed federal efforts to store nuclear waste in Utah.
Mister Leavitt supports a set of ideas for protecting
air, land and water. He and a former Democratic governor of Oregon put
forward these ideas called "Enlibra." The Western Governors
Association accepts Enlibra as its policy. Mister Leavitt has led that
group.
The ideas call for working together to seek
a balance in environmental decisions. Mister Leavitt says the costs
of programs must be weighed against the good they will do.
The Utah governor is generally described as
a moderate. Not everyone, though, is pleased with his record on the
environment. A lot of environmental leaders say he has not done an especially
good job.
Critics point to the governor's plan to build
a major road through wetlands near the Great Salt Lake. A federal court
stopped that project. Critics also say Mister Leavitt is too willing
to permit the use of public lands for oil drilling, mining and tree-cutting.
His nomination to become the next head of the
Environmental Protection Agency requires approval by the Senate. The
Senate plans to hold confirmation hearings in September.
This VOA Special English Environment Report
was written by Mario Ritter.
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