Chapter Two

Ruckelshaus wades into EPA

At the swearing-in ceremony at the old Executive Office Building in Washington, the President called him "an extraordinary public servant" who would have "total support in the difficult job of enforcing and administering our nation's environmental protection laws." Reagan urged him to start "a new chapter." With that mandate, William Ruckelshaus last week became the new administrator of the troubled Environmental Protection Agency. Said Jay Hair, executive vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, the nation's largest nonprofit citizen's conservation group: "Not only is Ruckelshaus the best choice anyone could hope for from this Administration, he would be an excellent choice in any Administration." Earlier in the week the Senate had echoed those sentiments in approving the nominee by a vote of 97 to 0. Quipped Republican Senator Robert Stafford from Vermont: "I only hope that hereafter Mr. Ruckelshaus can live up to his advance billing."

That may require the fullest exercise of his considerable political and personal skills. Only hours before the President hailed "a new beginning" for the agency, the House of Representatives voted, 413 to 0, to hold former EPA Official Rita Lavelle (head of the hazardous-waste program until she was fired in February) in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena to testify before a House subcommittee. Meanwhile, the Justice Department was reported to be considering a grand jury investigation into allegations that Lavelle and former EPA General Counsel Robert Perry committed perjury in their testimony before Congress. Former Administrator Anne Burford, who was forced to resign in March, has been cited for contempt in connection with congressional investigations of the $1.6 billion hazardous-waste Superfund. She resisted compliance with Congress's request for EPA documents at the request of the President.

However, new allegations continued to surface about EPA's management of the toxic-waste Superfund. In a press conference on Thursday, Representative John Dingell of Michigan charged that his committee's investigation into the agency had uncovered new evidence of wrongdoing by EPA officials. Dingell referred to a memorandum that Lavelle sent on Sept. 13, 1982, to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver. In it she proposed that the announcement of some Superfund grants in New Jersey be timed to benefit the election campaigns of two Republicans and that the President make an appearance for the announcement.

While Dingell failed to offer conclusive evidence--indeed Reagan did not even travel to New Jersey--the Congressman nonetheless maintained that the document "makes clear that Miss Lavelle and Mr. Deaver had been discussing the use of the Superfund for the intended benefit of certain congressional candidates, a Governor and the President of the United States." In reply, Deaver denied having had political discussions with Lavelle. "I've never talked to Lavelle the whole time she was in Washington," he said, and added jokingly, "I thought the Superfund was the United Way."

The incident served as a further reminder of the weighty political baggage that Ruckelshaus inherits at EPA. In his first move, Ruckelshaus issued--and the EPA made public--an internal memo with a list of new "general principles." Then, to demonstrate his pledge to run the agency "in a fishbowl," Ruckelshaus announced that his weekly appointment calendar would be made available to the public. He released a list of financial interests from which he would divest himself; among them was Weyerhaeuser, where he has been a senior vice president. By week's end the last two top holdovers at EPA from the Burford regime were asked to resign and did so. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.