It is an honor to come before this committee today as President-elect Bush's nominee to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. I am grateful for the opportunity the President-elect has given me.
Over the past several weeks, I have enjoyed sitting down with you, the members of the committee, to talk about what we can do together to preserve and protect our nation's environment.
I am especially looking forward to accepting your kind invitations to come to your states - and perhaps even visit some trout streams. It was on the banks of a little stream that ran through our farm that my father first introduced me to the beauty of nature, and I have been hooked ever since.
Mr. Chairman, we stand today at a place of enormous opportunity. Over the past three decades, our nation has won so many important victories in our common mission to preserve and protect America's environment.
We have seen a significant transformation in the way we view our air, water, and land. Today, there is universal agreement that our natural resources are valuable, not just for the economic prosperity they help create, but for what they add to our quality of life. No longer do we debate about "whether" we need to act to protect our environment. Instead, we discuss "how" we can keep America green while keeping our economy growing.
Due to the progress we have made, both in our actions and our attitudes, America is on the cusp of another major transformation. We are ready to enter a new era of environmental policy - an era that requires a new philosophy of public stewardship and personal responsibility.
To discover what this new era will look like, one need only look to the states. There's one state with which I'm particularly familiar, so let me tell you a bit about what we've done in New Jersey over the past seven years.
In my home state, we are moving beyond the "command and control" model of mandates, regulations, and litigation. We are, instead, working to forge strong partnerships among citizens, government, and business that are built on trust, cooperation, and shared mutual goals.
Those partnerships are producing results - clear, measurable results. I would like to share some of them with you.
Our air is cleaner. For example, the number of days New Jersey violated the federal one-hour air quality standard for ground level ozone has dropped from 45 in 1988 to just 4 last year. We're doing a better job monitoring our air quality, and we're on target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels through incentives to encourage voluntary reductions, promote energy efficiency and renewable technologies, and reduce landfill gas emissions.
Our water is clearer. The Delaware River is thriving again, with the shad population up by more than 300 percent since the 1970s. New Jersey leads the nation in opening shellfish beds for harvesting. Annual ocean beach closings have dropped from more than 800 in 1988 to just 11 this past year.
Our land is cleaner. We have transformed our brownfields program into a redevelopment tool, providing $15 million to help towns clean-up sites and market them for re-use. Mine is the only state in America with a reimbursement program for private parties that voluntarily clean-up sites. In addition, in 1998, the voters of New Jersey overwhelmingly approved my plan to preserve one million acres of open space and farmland by 2010 - and we are already 20 percent of the way there.
Only by measuring the quality of the environment - the purity of the water, the cleanliness of the air, the protection afforded the land - can we measure the success of our efforts. By those measures, New Jersey is succeeding: our water and air are cleaner, and our land better protected than it was seven years ago.
At the same time, New Jersey's economy is stronger than ever - more people have jobs in my state today than ever before in our history. As President-elect Bush has emphasized - and as New Jersey has seen - environmental protection and economic prosperity do go hand in hand.
The President-elect has articulated a set of clear principles that I will work to implement at the EPA, should I be confirmed. I would like to highlight several of them today.
First, we will launch a new era of cooperation among all stakeholders in environmental protection. Only by including all Americans can we meet the challenges we face. There is much government can do, but government cannot do it alone.
Second, we will maintain a strong federal role, but we will provide flexibility to the states and to local communities. They need that flexibility to craft solutions that meet their unique situations. We will also respect state and local authority and rely on their expertise.
Third, we will continue to set high standards and will make clear our expectations. To meet and exceed those goals, we will place greater emphasis on market-based incentives.
Next, we will use strong science. Scientific analysis should drive policy. Neither policy nor politics should drive scientific results.
Finally, we will work to promote effective compliance with environmental standards without weakening our commitment to vigorous enforcement of tough laws and regulations. We will offer the carrot when appropriate, and always preserve the stick of enforcement.
Taken together, these reforms will transform the way the EPA meets its mission. We will work in a bipartisan fashion to achieve them. They will also produce real results - results to which we will be able to look and know how far we have come - and how much further we need to go.
I am looking forward to the job ahead, should you honor me with confirmation. The EPA is staffed with some of the finest environmental professionals in the world. I know that they are eager, as I am, to begin our work together.
I also know that the demands I will face as Administrator of the EPA will not be the same I faced as governor. The position I hope to assume allows no room for regional favoritism. But I do expect to bring to my job an understanding - and an empathy - for what it is like to be on the receiving end of directives from Washington.
Mr. Chairman, one of the first things my father taught me, he taught me at that trout stream I mentioned a few minutes ago. I remember him telling me, "Christie, always leave anyplace you go cleaner than you found it."
He didn't know it at the time, but that was awfully good advice for someone who would someday be nominated to serve as head of the nation's agency for environmental protection. I pledge to you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that if I am confirmed I will do everything I can as EPA Administrator to leave America's environment cleaner than I found it.
Thank you.
Christine Todd Whitman, the 50th governor of New Jersey, was elected Nov. 2, 1993, and re-elected. 4, 1997. She is the first woman to be elected to the state's highest office. Her second term runs until noon, Jan. 15, 2002.
Thirty-eight times during her first seven years in office, Governor Whitman signed legislation to provide tax relief, most recently through a state earned income credit to complement the federal credit for low- and moderate-income taxpayers. She fulfilled a campaign promise to cut the state income tax by 30% for most taxpayers and signed legislation to eliminate the tax completely for an estimated 700,000 low-income families. Governor Whitman proposed and enacted the New Jersey SAVER program, the state's largest-ever direct property tax relief program. When fully phased in, New Jersey SAVER will provide households an average of $600 annually. She also signed bills to reinstate a property tax deduction on the state income tax and to freeze property taxes for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.
Governor Whitman proposed and won voter approval for a stable funding source to preserve 1 million more acres of open space and farmland by the year 2010. Nearly as much land - over 250,000 acres - has already been preserved during her administration as in the previous three decades of the state's land preservation program.
Governor Whitman encouraged greater use of the revised State Development and Redevelopment Plan as a tool for "smart growth," and encouraged redevelopment of cities through programs to streamline cleanups of abandoned industrial "brownfield" sites. She also established a new watershed management program and in 2000 proposed an overhaul of the state's water regulations to direct future development to areas already approved for sewer service.
During Governor Whitman's term, New Jersey significantly increased state funding for shore protection, experienced steep declines in beach closings, and earned recognition by the National Resource Defense Council for the most comprehensive beach monitoring system in the nation. Governor Whitman won voter approval for a plan to break a longstanding impasse over dredging the state's ports in an environmentally acceptable and economically feasible way. The governor also supplied new funding for projects to clean New Jersey waterways and for new efforts to monitor and improve air quality.
Governor Whitman initiated a $165 million plan in 2000 to encourage the growth of high- technology industries in New Jersey. Her efforts to spark private-sector job growth also include lowering corporate tax rates for small businesses, creating a business expansion and relocation incentive program, and reforming the state's civil justice system. These initiatives have helped the private sector add more than 420,000 jobs to the state's economy since the beginning of the Whitman administration.
In 2000, Governor Whitman approved an $8.6 billion school construction bill, by far the largest statewide investment in school infrastructure in the nation. During her tenure, Governor Whitman established new, rigorous standards in seven key academic subject areas for all public schools. She also approved legislation authorizing the establishment of charter schools, which now number more than 50, and creating a new college savings program for New Jersey families.
Governor Whitman approved legislation to reform the juvenile justice system and signed "Megan's Law," which requires community notification when a convicted sex offender is released from prison. She enacted legislation that mandates a life sentence for any violent criminal convicted of a serious crime for a third time. She also signed laws requiring violent criminals to serve at least 85% of their sentences before being considered for parole and giving the state Parole Board more discretion in denying parole to dangerous inmates.
Governor Whitman designed and enacted Work First New Jersey, a welfare reform plan that requires most welfare recipients to work and places a five-year lifetime limit on welfare benefits. Since the program began, New Jersey's welfare rolls have been cut by more than 50%. She also initiated efforts to expand and improve child care and established a subsidized health insurance program for low-income children and adults.
Governor Whitman appointed the first African American to serve on the state Supreme Court and the first female Chief Justice of the state's highest court. In 1995, she became the first governor to deliver the Republican response to a U.S. President's State of the Union Address.
Governor Whitman was born in New York City on September 26, 1946, and was raised in Oldwick Township in Hunterdon County. She attended the Far Hills Country Day School in Far Hills and the Chapin School in New York City. She graduated from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., with a bachelor's degree in government in 1968.
Upon completing college, Ms. Whitman worked for the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity and for the Republican National Committee. While with the committee, she instituted a program to attract new party members from groups not traditionally aligned with the Republican Party.
In 1982, Ms. Whitman was elected to the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders. She was re-elected in 1985 and during her tenure on the board served two terms as director and deputy director.
In 1988, Governor Thomas H. Kean appointed Ms. Whitman to fill an unexpired term on the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and designated her to serve as its president. She was appointed to a full six-year term on the board in June 1989, but resigned the following year to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Although she lost to Senator Bill Bradley, she defied pollsters by garnering 49 percent of the vote.
The governor is married to John R. Whitman, a financial consultant. They have two children: Kate, born in 1977, and Taylor, born in 1979.
Governor Whitman is the youngest daughter of the late Eleanor and Webster Todd, both of whom held leadership positions in state and county government and within the Republican Party. Mrs. Todd was a president of the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women, a Republican National Committee Woman, and a vice chairwoman of the New Jersey Board of Higher Education; and the governor's father served for many years as state Republican chairman. Governor Whitman's two brothers, Webster Todd, Jr. and the late John Todd, and her sister, Kate Beach, have also served in various elected and appointed offices at the local, state, and federal levels.