The Short List For EPA

Few

top posts in the federal government are as thankless as the job of running the Environmental Protection Agency. Green groups fly into a rage when they perceive the EPA lowering its protective vigilance; industries find every regulation a threat to their bottom lines. Who wouldn't grow weary of these warring factions? Christine Todd Whitman did, and announced last month that she will leave her post as EPA administrator on June 27. The short list of prospective replacements, confirmed by a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity, consists of Tom Skinner, the head of an EPA regional office; Idaho Gov. and former Sen. Dirk Kempthorne; and Deputy EPA administrator Linda Fisher.

Whitman's successes — promulgating regulations that slash diesel pollution and issuing fiats forcing General Electric to clean up part of New York's Hudson River —  may eventually outlive her struggles. But White House reversals on regulating greenhouse-gas emissions and last-minute, Clinton-era rules for regulating arsenic in drinking water smashed her credibility with environmental groups early in the administration. The White House has yet to name a successor or indicate when it will decide.

A big part of the Bush administration's calculus is its well-known penchant for message discipline. The success of cabinet members, it sometimes seems, is judged by how well they broadcast policies received whole from the White House, rather than by their advice and guidance in creating them. When the outspoken and off-message Paul O'Neill was fired from his post as Treasury Secretary last year, it didn't take a political scientist to predict the qualities that his successor would have: consistency and loyalty. At look at the candidates:

Skinner runs the EPA's Midwestern district, which includes six states from Ohio, west to Illinois and northwest to Minnesota. His relative anonymity, even among liberal beltway EPA watchers, could be a bonus; a blank political slate can trump a documented history. As head of an EPA regional office (and former Illinois EPA chief), Skinner sees to it that states and the companies within them comply with the agency's rules and standards — licensing and inspecting big polluters, and issuing clean-up orders.

Kempthorne left his U.S. Senate seat in 1998 to become governor of Idaho, where the salmon and wolf populations, dairy-farm pollution and a Superfund cleanup have captured attention in recent years — as have his conservative appointments to the state Fish and Game Commission. Kempthorne's stature as a former senator and twice-elected governor may make him attractive to the Bush administration. It's not the first time his name has been floated for a top job — Republicans spoke of him as a potential running mate for Bob Dole in 1996. But his long experience also means the environmental movement already has his dossier. A Kempthorne nomination "would embroil the administration in the worst of all conformation battles," says Phil Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust.

Fisher, Whitman's deputy at EPA, is expected to become acting director later this month. Highly regarded within the agency, Fisher also maintains a good reputation among some prominent environmentalists. But green groups are likely to resist her nomination nonetheless, feeling she is tainted by Bush's policies. She held important posts in the Reagan and first-Bush EPAs. During the Clinton years, she managed the government affairs office for Monsanto, the chemical and biotechnology company. Fisher's candidacy is a hat-tip to her work in the agency and the civil servants below her. But it may only be that. One White House source suggests that Skinner and Kempthorne are more likely nominees. And other names may well emerge as the White House tries to fill one of its thorniest posts.