Green Jersey

Lisa Jackson denies DEP mismanagement

Lisa Jackson commented yesterday on the recent audit by her agency, the EPA, that criticized the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection during the time she was running it.

The audit charged the DEP with not making fixes identified in a 2006 Corrective Action Plan, and doing a shoddy job of record-keeping in the realm of toxic site remediation as well as failing to check up on cleanups (the EPA assessment team, according to the report, found that cleanup contractors in New Jersey were “taken at their word”).

From the Record:

New Jersey can improve the way it checks the quality of information it gets from contractors cleaning hazardous waste sites, but the program is not badly managed, the nation’s top federal regulator said Monday.

Jackson also said the report wasn’t about DEP management, according to the Record’s correspondent. (You can access the report here.)

…EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, who had promised to make improvements when she was New Jersey’s DEP commissioner for two years until late 2008, would not comment at a news conference when asked why [improvements] had not been made.

Jackson said she agreed when she took over the EPA to recuse herself from involvement with any actions she took as New Jersey’s commissioner. A spokesman said the recusal is designed to prevent Jackson from influencing EPA employees to act one way or another regarding New Jersey.

“The audit came out, that’s a good thing. I read about it like other folks did,” Jackson said. “My understanding of this audit was it was about data quality, not about program management. Here’s an opportunity to strengthen that.”

Jackson has faced tough questions since the EPA report surfaced Friday. Read the Record’s story here; read Bill Wolfe’s post about Jackson’s comments here.