Fifteen years ago, a little girl was in Washington, D.C. She was sitting in the corner of a conference room playing with Polly Pockets while her dad was in an important round table meeting with the Heritage Foundation discussing water treatment systems. She was promised that if she was as quiet as a mouse during the meeting, her dad would take her sightseeing. Oh, how she was dying to see the Lincoln Memorial.
That little girl was me.
When the meeting adjourned, a swarm of people got up from the table. I stuffed my Polly Pockets into my backpack and went to meet up with my dad. He extended his hand for me to take it when a woman approached us aghast.
“My goodness,” she said, “Has that child been here this whole time?”
My dad looked at me, smiled and said, “Savannah, I would like you to meet Christine Todd Whitman, the current administrator of the EPA.”
I didn’t know what an EPA was or why it was important, but Whitman extended her hand for me to shake and introduced herself. My dad explained that, yes, I had been in the conference room the entire time and had promised me that if I behaved then I could go sightseeing.
Whitman told him he better be ready to follow through with his end of the bargain because I was one of the most well-behaved children she had ever seen and that she hadn't even known I had been there.
Fast forward 15 years, and I know a lot more than five-year-old me knew in 2001. For example, I know that EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency and that Christie Whitman was the administrator during George W. Bush’s presidency. I also know that I was standing in the presence of a former governor of New Jersey.
Yesterday I had the honor of interviewing Whitman about her thoughts regarding the current election and how environmental policy has gotten little to no coverage at all.
“I’m actually kind of glad it hasn’t received much attention,” Whitman said.
It is her view that candidates tend to politicize issues of environmental policy, but when they get into office, unforeseen circumstances occur, and those issues take the back burner to everything else. Between the candidates, however, Whitman stated that Hillary Clinton has a stronger environmental platform than Donald Trump.
The former Republican governor mentioned in her op-ed “Why Clinton is the Only Choice for President” that she would be backing the Democrat this time around instead of the Republican candidate. Whitman has also been active in the #NeverTrump movement.
“Hillary is much more balanced in the area,” Whitman said. “This administration does not have a good enough relationship with Congress right now.”
Whitman said the Obama administration puts too much focus on the regulatory process and is weak when it comes to issues of environmental policy. The EPA, she said, was started with the intent to give people cleaner and healthier air.
In recent press conferences, both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have mentioned that global warming and climate change are bigger threats to the U.S. than terrorism.
Whitman said while global warming, or climate change, is on another level, it is still an issue of national security — just a very different one.
“One of the major sources of pollution is combustion of hydrocarbons for transportation, agriculture and manufacturing,” said Jon Anderson, a 69-year-old UF family, youth and community sciences graduate student. “While ISIS poses a threat to the U.S., it is hard to conceive of scenarios involving ISIS that overshadow these facts.”
Back in March, Donald Trump mentioned he would eliminate the Department of Education and the EPA in order to balance the national budget. Whitman said Trump cannot eliminate the EPA, as it was created by the people in order to obtain healthy, clean air.
“Remember,” Whitman said, “Mother Nature doesn’t care about geo-political boundaries … The EPA can be reformed, but not eliminated.”
Savannah Edgens is a UF journalism junior. This column originally appeared on her website and is reprinted with her permission.
