December 22, 2017 at 4:31 p.m.
Cathy Stepp named EPA Region 5 administrator
Former DNR secretary climbs the ladder fast
Cathy Stepp named EPA Region 5 administrator
Stepp will oversee environmental protection efforts in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and, notably, Wisconsin.
Stepp left the DNR this past summer to take a position as a deputy regional administrator for Region 7. The new post will return Stepp to the Midwest region.
From 2011 to 2017, Stepp headed the Wisconsin DNR, and she also served as a Wisconsin state senator from 2003 to 2007. She has also run a business as a home builder.
"Cathy Stepp's experience working as a statewide cabinet official, elected official, and small business owner will bring a fresh perspective to EPA as we look to implement President Trump's agenda," Pruitt said Tuesday.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker called Stepp a strong and trusted reformer.
"As Wisconsin's DNR secretary, she led an outstanding work force committed to preserving and promoting our natural resources while placing a strong focus on customer service and common sense," Walker said. "We wish her all the best in her new role."
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce president and CEO Kurt Bauer said Wisconsin and all the states in EPA's Region 5 would be well served by Stepp.
"As secretary of the Wisconsin DNR, she routinely balanced the needs of a growing economy with the importance of protecting our natural resources," Bauer said. "As Region 5 administrator, I have no doubt that she will take a common-sense approach to environmental oversight, just as she did for nearly seven years in Wisconsin."
Wisconsin Realtors Association senior vice president Tom Larson was no less effusive.
"No problem is too big for Cathy Stepp," Larson said. "Her enthusiastic, can-do attitude, combined with her tireless energy and superb problem-solving skills, make her the perfect choice to serve as the regional administrator for EPA's Region 5."
Stepp also drew accolades from her fellow administrators in the EPA.
"I am very pleased that Cathy Stepp will be the EPA Region 5 administrator," Ohio EPA director Craig Butler said. "She is a strong leader with proven state experience. She knows how to get things done and I look forward to working closely with her."
Not everybody's assessment was so sanguine.
The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters called her appointment a damaging blow to Wisconsin's and its neighbors' environmental and public health. Executive director Kerry Schumann said Stepp had left the state DNR in tatters.
"Before Cathy Stepp's appointment as secretary of the Wisconsin DNR, the agency was widely considered one of the best of its kind in the country," Schumann said. "Under her watch, the agency's environmental enforcement abilities were dismantled, its scientists kicked out, its website scrubbed of climate change information and, under the orders of the Walker administration, she shifted its focus from protecting Wisconsin's natural resources to handing out favors to polluters."
Schumann said it made sense that the Trump EPA was looking for people like Stepp - people, she said, who are willing to sell out the environment to the highest bidder.
"The consequences will be stark," she said. "With environmental rollbacks like the Foxconn disaster, the pending removal of wetlands protections, and the elimination of all our air quality standards in the state, Wisconsin will also have fewer and fewer protections from the EPA to help maintain water we can drink, air we can breathe, land that doesn't flood, and its public health."
Richard Moore is the author of The New Bossism of the American Left and can be reached at www.rmmoore1.com.
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