Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA
administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional
administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.
He further reported that one of those officials had recently assessed
her performance as
“outstanding”:
Five months ago, a top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official
gave Mary Gade a performance rating of “outstanding.” On Thursday, the
same official told her to quit or be fired as the agency’s top
regulator in the Midwest.
The regional administrators report
directly to the office of
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. So who
can the “two aides to national EPA
administrator Stephen Johnson” who “took away her powers” be? The
following are the most likely suspects:
Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency dismissed Midwest
regional administrator Mary
Gade,
one of ten such officials appointed directly by
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. Gade, a
lifelong Republican and a prominent supporter of George W.
Bush’s
pursuit of the presidency in 2000, told the Chicago Tribune, “There’s
no question this is about
Dow.”
Gade was locked in a battle with Dow Chemical over the cleanup of dioxin
poisoning from its world headquarters in Michigan. As former
EPA official Robert Sussman writes in the
Wonk
Room,
“To remove a Regional Administrator because of a disagreement over
policy at an individual site is unheard of.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) just spoke on the Senate floor about
Gade’s firing. Whitehouse compared her firing with the U.S. Attorney
scandal
that enveloped the Department of Justice and led to Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales’s resignation:
We do not yet know all the details of Ms. Gade’s firing, or everything
that may have gone on between her office and Dow Chemical. But from
everything that we’ve heard and seen so far, it looks like déjà vu
all over again. From an administration that values compliance with
its political agenda more than it values the trust or the best
interests of the American people. Last year we learned that this is an
administration that wouldn’t hesitate to fire capable federal
prosecutors when they wouldn’t toe an improper party line. Today it
seems that the Bush Administration might have once again removed a
highly qualified and well-regarded official whose only misstep was to
disagree with the political bosses.
Watch it:
Sen. Whitehouse also announced that he is conducting an oversight
hearing into the politicization of the
EPA
and the circumstances of Gade’s dismissal next Wednesday. The last time
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testified
before Sen. Whitehouse, he put in a shameful performance, leading
Whitehouse to
state:
In my short time in Washington, I didn’t think I would again encounter
a witness as evasive and unresponsive as Alberto
Gonzales
was during our investigation of the U.S. Attorney scandal.
Unfortunately, today EPA Administrator
Johnson stooped to that low standard.