In addition to Secretary of State, President Obama now has another cabinet member to replace. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that she will be leaving her post with the president’s new term. “I will leave the EPA confident the ship is sailing in the right direction, and ready in my own life for new challenges, time with my family and new opportunities to make a difference.”
President Obama praised Jackson for her service and said that “under her leadership, the EPA has taken sensible and important steps to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink.”
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, pictured here with Jackson during pictured here during a tour of a Renewable Energy Group (REG) biodiesel plant in April 2011, is sorry she is leaving the cabinet.
“Lisa Jackson has served our country well as she balanced improving the environment and the health of the American people – while ensuring our country’s economic competitiveness – because they are intrinsically linked,” said Vilsack in a statement today. “Throughout her tenure, she listened to stakeholders, including farmers and ranchers, and took their concerns into account while considering policies that impacted rural America. She was a friend to me and to those who live and work in rural America and her leadership will be missed.”
Under Jackson the EPA has come up with several initiatives considered to be unfriendly to agriculture, including the landmark declaration that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act, and controversial limits on nutrient pollution flowing from several states into the Chesapeake Bay.
Jackson has not said what her next move will be and there has been no indication from the administration yet of who might replace her.
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