![[logo] US EPA](http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
Becoming EPA Administrator
Q: How did you become EPA Administrator?
MR. COSTLE: I know only some of the story. I went to Connecticut, helped set up and run that State's EPA, and eventually headed the whole Department. It was a consolidated agency, including the natural resources management functions as well as pollution control. Even though the EPA piece functioned separately, it began to draw strength from the fish and wildlife and water conservation people. We were definitely beneficiaries of the new federal grant-making authority. We were able to triple our staff and other resources.
The federal Clean Air and Clean Water Acts clearly contemplated State implementation and enforcement. Those laws were brilliantly crafted to get results; their compromise was not in the goals or the standard-setting but in the time they would allow you. The Congressional authors calculated that, as this new pressure was applied to the economy, the safety valve would be in extending deadlines. They knew they had to be clear about the objectives, and they set a degree of specificity that no bureaucracy could mumble away.
But State implementation meant big changes for the States. For example, when I was heading the Connecticut EPA I knew that we couldn't run programs with engineers alone. We had to bring additional skills to bear: lawyers, economists, and communications. It was very exciting, actually, to build an operation where you were never more than an hour away from any problem. This proximity also gave us the advantage of quick feedback on where our proposals would work or not. But there was never any lack of resolve that things were going to change. We wanted to do so intelligently, and we wanted to innovate. We developed the administrative civil penalties program, a very clever concept for which Bill Drayton was the spearhead. Washington deals at an abstract level. In the States, you get down in the trenches with the 50 permits that you are going to issue to the State's largest manufacturing employer.
And you're dealing with the complexity of town governments. They will have to raise taxes. They will have to hold referenda -- and those get beat down periodically. I had threats from mayors to have their garbage trucks dump their loads on the governor's doorstep if I shut their landfills. We did shut some down, and trucks didn't come. But those were searing political experiences.
Those were also heady days. I would characterize that period of the '70s as an era of improvisation, and the state level as a wonderful place to get the experience of implementing a law. It wasn't just drafting a document and throwing it out for a policy debate, casting thy bread upon the waters to see how soggy it gets. We had to make the abstract work. To me, this represents a key principle of public service. It's not a political game. In the end, success is measured by getting something done that makes a difference for the public good.
In any event, here I had wound up, a Democrat working for a Republican Governor, a wonderful man named Tom Meskill, who was very supportive. Then a Democrat was elected Governor, and I got thrown out. I called Russ Train and asked, "Do you have any work that I could do while I figure out what I am going to do with my life?" At that instant, the chief environmental staffer retired from the Domestic Policy Council. Gerald Ford was now President, and Nelson Rockefeller was running the DPC, which the White House was actually trying to restore to the Ash Council's original conception. I agreed with Russ that I would fill the DPC seat while Jim Cannon, President Ford's chief of staff, was recruiting. So for several months I had the young policy wonk's dream, including access to the President.
At that same time, I met Alice Rivlin, a young economist from the Brookings Institute whose task was to set up the new Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Up until then, the federal
budget would simply emerge at the end of a Congressional season. The green-eyeshades people at the Bureau of the Budget would add up all the appropriations, with no discussion of the larger context -- surplus or deficit -- and no focus on the out-year implications. Congress realized that it was at a disadvantage and needed the analytical capability to do its own budget analysis in order to keep the executive branch honest with the numbers. Senator Muskie and Representative Brock Adams pushed through the 1974 Budget Reform Act, creating the new Congressional House and Senate Budget Committees and the Congressional Budget Office. CBO was to develop policy options for the Congress, crunch the numbers, and prepare five-year projections for existing and proposed legislation. Alice was charged with setting all this up in a hurry. So I traded my White House access, office, and chauffeur service for a three-legged desk and a roof that leaked in the basement of the old Carroll Arms Hotel to help get CBO started. Then came the '76 election.
Early after Jimmy Carter had started running for the Presidency, he had set up a group, under Jack Watson, to plan the transition should they win. Stu Eizenstat worked with that group, as did Bill Drayton. Based on our Connecticut experience, Bill asked me to prepare a memorandum on EPA, from my perspective as a former state administrator. I remember making a very strong pitch for management, for people who understood these programs, had been involved in their development and implementation, and could tighten up the agency for another era of growth. With respect to rulemaking, I argued that EPA needed to better anticipate impacts and implementation problems.
After Jimmy Carter won, I got a call asking if I would join the transition team, working on government reorganization issues. I talked with Alice about the offer. By that time it was clear that the Congress, at that point, was only interested in numbers, not in policy options -- unless the options agreed with what the sponsor wanted. It was a testy business to get a Hill client to request a policy study of, for example, the space shuttle without also having him suggest the conclusions that were to come out. To her credit and because of her integrity, Alice would not play the game that way, so CBO did not. But I thought this new opportunity would be more exciting, so I left CBO for the transition team, not knowing what I was going to do afterwards.
The Carter transition team was organized into clusters, with one group working on appointments in the environment and energy area: the Departments of the Interior and Energy, CEQ, EPA, etc. Because I had administered a State agency, my name got on the list of EPA candidates. Cecil Andrus was picked for Interior, and Jim Schlesinger for Energy. One morning Cecil asked me to come see him, and we had a wonderful chat for about an hour. I knew he had already chosen his deputy and several key assistant secretaries, and I began to think this had to do with EPA, particularly when he asked if I thought EPA ought to be merged with Interior. I went through my litany of reasons why not. He said, "Good, I agree." I later learned my name was forwarded to the White House, basically because I was the only one of the final four candidates who had run anything sizable.
A short time later, I was asked to meet with Hamilton Jordan at the White House. He asked, "Could you see the President tomorrow?" I went in on a Saturday morning, and the President and I talked well beyond the scheduled 20 minutes. When I left, he said, "I want you to call me directly any time you need to. You should never feel that you can't get through to me. By the way, you'll have to fill out papers for the FBI."
In Ham's office, I told him, "I think I have just been offered a job, and I think it's EPA." Ham roared and said, "That's right."
I liked President Carter personally. He was very bright, a man who clearly was interested in how government worked. You sensed real integrity. He didn't know many details about EPA, but he felt very strongly that this area would be important to his Administration.