The Nuclear Industry's New Shill: Christie Todd Whitman

By Diane Farsetta, Center for Media and Democracy. Posted August 27, 2007.

"Was it wrong to try to get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible?" an exasperated Christine Todd Whitman asked members of Congress. The occasion was Whitman's first appearance before the House subcommittee investigating her handling of New York air quality issues post-9/11, when she headed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Absolutely not," she continued. "Safety was first and foremost, but we weren't going to let the terrorists win."

There are many critics of the EPA's response to the admittedly unprecedented attacks. In August 2003, the EPA's own inspector general reported that there was not "sufficient data and analyses" to claim -- as Whitman did on September 18, 2001 -- that New York's air was "safe to breathe." The inspector general also found that EPA statements were confusing even to experienced toxicologists, and may have contributed to low rates of respirator use among Ground Zero workers. In February 2006, federal judge Deborah Batts called Whitman's statements post-9/11 "misleading" and "conscience shocking." In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office identified serious, continuing problems with how Whitman's EPA addressed indoor contamination in lower Manhattan.

The issue is more than academic. Since 2001, some 70 percent of Ground Zero workers -- tens of thousands of people, many without health insurance -- have had respiratory problems, including chronic illnesses, according to one medical study. Two deaths have been linked to World Trade Center dust, and reports of rare cancers are on the rise.

Yet in her Congressional testimony on June 25, 2007, Christie Whitman dismissed criticisms of her former agency as "misinformation, innuendo and outright falsehoods." Presumably, the nuclear power industry admires Whitman's rhetorical chutzpah.

When the Nuclear Energy Institute -- with help from its PR firm, Hill & Knowlton -- launched the "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition" in April 2006, Christie Whitman was named its co-chair, a paid position. Since then, the industry-funded campaign to re-brand nuclear power as clean, green and safe has benefited from Whitman's communications skills, political connections and environmentalist image.

It's not easy being (seen as) green

Whether Whitman has earned green credentials is another matter.

She's often portrayed as well-meaning but stymied by hard-line Republicans. When Whitman announced her resignation from the EPA in May 2003, the Philadelphia Inquirer lauded her as a "voice of reason." David Letterman joked that the Bush administration thought she was "too soft on decimating pristine forests." Whitman's 2005 book "It's My Party, Too" fed this image, as did her recent admission that she left the EPA not for personal reasons, as she claimed at the time, but to avoid signing off on plans to ease factory pollution controls.

(Whitman's admission -- four years after her resignation -- was made the same week as the 9/11 air quality hearing. Just before the hearing, Whitman charged the administration of former mayor Rudy Giuliani with not doing enough to ensure that Ground Zero workers used respirators, and with hampering the EPA's response to a 2001 anthrax scare. Whitman's belated candor conveniently deflected attention away from Congress' investigation into her role post 9/11.)

Jim DiPeso, the policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection, is among those who give Christie Whitman an "A for effort." During Whitman's tenure at the EPA, "she was on such a tight leash," DiPeso told PR Watch. "I think that she wanted to push the administration towards regulating greenhouse gases, putting caps on carbon dioxide emissions, but the White House and the Vice President's office just simply wouldn't allow it." DiPeso's group is a strategic partner of Whitman's political action committee, the Republican Leadership Council.

Others are more critical of Whitman's tenure at the EPA. "At times it seemed as if Ms. Whitman had been appointed merely to make the Bush administration seem more interested in the environment," editorialized the Washington Post in May 2003. "Yet if she really disagreed with some of the decisions, it seems strange that Ms. Whitman stayed in her job as long as she did."

If it were Bush, Cheney et al. that kept Whitman's environmentalism in check, then perhaps she championed green issues prior to moving to Washington. But Whitman's record as governor of New Jersey, from 1994 to 2001, is spotty at best, according to reporters, state workers and environmentalists.

See more stories tagged with: environmentalism, epa, ethics, pr, nuclear industry, christie todd whitman

Diane Farsetta is senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Environment! Sign up now »