Conflict of Interest for Christine Todd Whitman?

The ombudsman for the Environmental Protection Agency says he was punished by administrator Christine Todd Whitman after he opposed an agreement to sharply limit the amount of money financial titan Citigroup -- a principal investor in Whitman's husband's venture capital firm -- would have to pay in a controversial Superfund cleanup case.

EPA ombudsman Robert J. Martin, who functions as the agency's public interest advocate, alleges that Whitman ordered his office reassigned within the EPA bureaucracy and stripped of its independence after he opposed a nuclear-waste cleanup settlement with Citigroup that would limit its liability to a fraction of the cleanup cost.

Martin made the conflict of interest charge against Whitman in a lawsuit filed Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the ombudsman's duties and investigative files from being transferred to the EPA's Office of Inspector General, an agency Martin has clashed with in the past and is currently investigating. Through a spokesperson, Whitman denied Martin's charges.

Martin won a crucial legal battle Friday, when Judge Richard W. Roberts ruled in his favor, delaying his reassignment until Feb. 26. "Before the hearing I said that I was cautiously optimistic," Martin said. "I now rejoice that truth has prevailed and justice has been done."

Martin is opposing, among other EPA moves, a pending agreement that will limit Citigroup's liability to $7.2 million for cleaning up a nuclear waste Superfund site in Denver. Officials in EPA's Region 8, which includes Colorado, reckon the cost of cleaning up the Citigroup-owned Shattuck site will be $22 million to $35 million.

Martin's own analysis separately concluded that a proper cleanup of the site, which is located in a working-class neighborhood and contains a 15-foot tall mound of radioactively contaminated soil, would cost as much as $100 million. Limiting Citigroup's liability to $7.2 million would therefore transfer as much as $93 million of the cleanup's cost to taxpayers, Martin alleges.

Whitman's actions, the ombudsman charged in his lawsuit, will "have the immediate effect of muzzling the voice of accountability within the EPA that has been, and would otherwise continue to be, the primary source of information about the inadequacy of clean-up plans of highly toxic waste sites affecting the public and the environment."

Historically, the ombudsman has not wielded decision-making authority at EPA, but has responsibility for investigating complaints about the agency brought by citizens, local governments and corporations. The role has caused friction between the ombudsman and the rest of the EPA before, but this is the sharpest conflict to date.

Whatever the reason for Whitman's move -- and Martin has not produced evidence that she intervened to benefit Citigroup -- the reassignment could well de-fang an office that has been a sharp critic of industry and an advocate for tougher environmental protection. Coming at the same time as the widening Enron scandal, the lawsuit is one more headache for the Bush administration, which stands accused of being more concerned about its corporate patrons than the public interest. Whitman's move against Martin has been harshly criticized on Capitol Hill -- with the strongest opposition coming from Western-state Republicans.

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., wrote to Whitman Jan. 8 asking that she delay the transfer until Congress can analyze it. "She's decided to put him in the Inspector General's Office, and the way I understand the way it's set up ... he does not maintain his independence," he says. Allard praises ombudsman Martin and his chief investigator, Hugh Kaufman, for reversing what he calls EPA's mistaken approach to the original cleanup of Denver's Shattuck site, and for being the first representatives from the EPA who listened to his constituents' concerns about radioactive waste. Kaufman is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Whitman.