EPA Administrator pledges respect for work force

In a memo sent to all Environmental Protection Agency employees today, newly minted administrator Lisa Jackson promised  to “make respect for the EPA work force a bedrock principle of my tenure.”

She said:

I will look to you every day for ideas, advice and expertise. EPA should once again be the workplace of choice for veteran public servants and also talented young people beginning careers in environmental protection – just as it was for me when I first joined EPA shortly after graduate school.

She also reiterated promises she made to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to make science the foundation of EPA programs and decisions.

When scientific judgments are suppressed, misrepresented or distorted by political agendas, Americans can lose faith in their government to provide strong public health and environmental protection…The laws that Congress has written and directed EPA to implement leave room for policy judgments. However, policy decisions should not be disguised as scientific findings.

In the introductory memo to her the staff, she also pledged to make the agency more transparent and to involve the public in decision making processes, particularly communities that have been “disproportionately impacted by pollution.”