EPA Ombudsman Resigns Over Job Shift
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CommentSubject: EPA Ombudsman Resigns Over Job Shift
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 16:50:57 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
EPA Ombudsman Resigns Over Job Shift
By H. Josef Hebert Associated Press Writer
Published: Apr 22, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP)
- An embattled ombudsman at the Environmental Protection Agency submitted his
resignation Monday, complaining the agency was transferring him into a job
where he would "merely answer a telephone" and have no power Robert
Martin, who for nearly a decade has held the $118,000-a-year job as ombudsman
for EPA's hazardous waste office, has been embroiled in lengthy feud with
senior EPA officials going back to the Clinton administration.
A federal court on Feb. 12 rejected a lawsuit challenging his
transfer to the EPA inspector general's office.
At the time, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the
transfer would give Martin "more independence and the impartiality
necessary to conduct credible inquiries."
But Martin called the transfer a maneuver to get him out of
the way because he had become an irritant in the congressionally established
post of ombudsman for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. His
job includes complaints about the handling the Superfund toxic waste cleanup
program.
He accused Whitman of "obliterating the independent
ombudsman function" at the EPA.
"I cannot recognize in principle and conscience ... the seizure of my files and planned transfer to the Office of Inspector General where I will ... merely answer a telephone," Martin wrote Whitman in his letter of resignation.
There was no immediate comment from the EPA on Martin's
resignation.
In an interview, Martin said that while he was out of town on
EPA business last week, the locks of his office were changed and his files and
computer taken. He said in his new position within the IGs office he would be
"in an untenable position" with little independence and barred from
even talking to the media or members of Congress about EPA activities.
Martin, who is Native American, said he had no plans but may
return to his Makah Tribe in western Washington state.
He has been ombudsman at the EPA for nearly 10 years, named
to the job during the Republican administration of President George H.W. Bush.
Over the years he frequently has clashed with EPA political appointees both in
the Clinton administration and more recently in the Bush administration.
During the Clinton administration, Martin and senior EPA
officials disputed levels of cleanup at Superfund toxic waste sites in several
states with Martin arguing the cleanup standards weren't tough enough. A
senior EPA investigator, Hugh Kaufman, was ordered to no longer work with
Martin, prompting Kaufman to file a whistleblower complaint.
Martin and Kaufman also had run-ins with Bush political appointees over complaints from lawmakers about Superfund cleanups.
AP-ES-04-22-02 1842EDT
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