Gov. Michael Leavitt's nomination to succeed Christie Whitman as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency means that the country will be not be treated to a rerun of the political soap operas that marked the Whitman years. That is bad news. Mrs. Whitman almost always lost her internal battles on behalf of the regulatory framework that for 30 years has brought the nation cleaner air and water. But the country was better off for having her in Washington, a solitary if increasingly faint voice against the ideologues and lobbyists who occupy every other important environmental job. Mr. Leavitt, by contrast, is at one with the administration: a Westerner, unlike Mrs. Whitman, and an antiregulatory one at that. He should fit right in.
A three-term Utah governor who saw little point in seeking a fourth, Mr. Leavitt is also smart, soft-spoken and a formidable negotiator. Among his recent successes were the two back-room deals he worked out earlier this year with Gale Norton, the interior secretary, to strip federal protections from millions of acres of public land in Utah. The deals were deplored by environmentalists but celebrated by the oil, gas and off-road-vehicle interests, which hope to exploit that land for commercial purposes.
Mr. Leavitt says he is more sympathetic to the environment than his critics think. He will have some early opportunities to prove it.
On his desk are two pro-business proposals pushed by the White House that are vigorously opposed by the environmental community. One would greatly narrow the scope of the Clean Water Act by removing federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands, lakes and streams. This is a terrible proposal for which even the Justice Department has little enthusiasm. But it is favored by the home builders and other interests to whom the White House feels indebted.
The second proposal would gut a key provision of the Clean Air Act known as "new source review." That provision requires older power plants to install modern pollution controls whenever they significantly expand their output. Eliot Spitzer of New York and other attorneys general have successfully invoked the provision in a series of lawsuits against older power plants whose largely unregulated emissions contribute significantly to air pollution in the Northeast. Their most important victory came just last week in a federal case involving Ohio Edison. Since the decision is likely to influence other pending cases, the big utilities are sure to bring heavy pressure to bear on Mr. Leavitt to get rid of new-source review once and for all.
Mr. Bush plainly hopes that Mr. Leavitt's low-key approach will generally keep the E.P.A. and environmental issues out of the news. With crucial sections of two bedrock environmental laws under attack, that will not be easy.
It's frightening to know that he's still keeping up with all the latest trends in deception and deregulation, prepping himself for some kind of phoenix-like return to fraudulent corporate commerce or a return to his role as the antichrist of energy policy in the future.
While the circus of indictments of just about everyone else at Enron also deserving of prosecutorial attention continues, Ken Lay isn't suffering at all. Fat in his wide leather seat, it appears that he is on the Atkins diet because he ate only the meat from his First Class meal.
