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Monday, January 17, 2005

Env't - More on Bill and Jill Ruckelshaus C-SPAN Q&A interview

As I noted Saturday, last evening Brian Lamb of C-SPAN interviewed Bill and Jill Ruckelshaus on the new C-SPAN show, Q & A (which replaced the beloved Booknotes). I found the show and the subjects were outstanding (but a disclaimer may be in order - I worked on Bill's U.S. Senate campaign and was the director of a commission he chaired for Governor Bowen). I didn't know, however, the story of how he came to be appointed the first EPA administrator by President Nixon. Here from the transcrpt of last night's show:

LAMB: But you went to Princeton. You went to Harvard, got a law degree. You were head of the Environmental Protection Agency twice, the FBI director for a while, deputy attorney general, head of BFI, Browning-Ferris, on and on. Along the way, though, what other little things, or maybe not so little things, did you do to make sure that you were successful? What extra lengths did you go to to -- how'd you get into these places?

(LAUGHTER)

WILLIAM RUCKELSHAUS: Well, some of it was luck. I mean, being -- for instance, getting the first Environmental Protection Agency administrator -- the president had offered that to a couple of people. And I was in John Mitchell's office one day. I was in the Justice Department at the time. And he said, Say, I saw your name in the paper as a possible EPA administrator. And I explained to him where that came from, that I wasn't unhappy in the Justice Department, I wasn't trying to fish for another job. And he said, Well, would you like that job? I said, In fact, having seen the same thing myself, I've looked into it and it would be challenging, but I'm not here to ask you for that. I was there on a different -- for a different reason. He said, Well, let me raise it with the president. And he did, and about 48 hours later, I was announced as the EPA administrator.

LAMB: Let me stop you, though, because that story I read somewhere, and it's -- there's a more precise part of it I want you to tell because people that watch this -- we try to go through these kind of things. Your name was dropped in the "Periscope" column in "Newsweek" magazine.

(LAUGHTER)

LAMB: And that's what I want you to tell me because people don't really believe these things happen. Explain how that happened.

WILLIAM RUCKELSHAUS: I had been in the state board of health in Indiana, in the Indiana attorney general's office, representing the state board of health in water pollution, air pollution. To the extent the state of Indiana had any laws that affected air and water pollution in the '60s, and we didn't have very many, I was kind of it. I was at the state board of health, representing them as they pursued somebody who was stinking up a town or something. That's what you needed to do to get in trouble then. And there was a person assigned named Jerry Hansler (ph) from the National Health Service to Indiana. He was assigned to the state board of health. And he and I used to go around in his panel truck, looking for pollution cases. And he'd get out and take a picture of them, and we'd bring it to this pollution control board. He was the one who dropped this into that "Periscope" column. He lived in New York at the time, and I mean, I'd lost track of him. I'd moved to Washington after having run for the Senate, and here came my name in print. I didn't have any idea how it got there, and he called me up and said, I bet you wonder how you got your name in "Newsweek." And I said, Yes. And he says, I put it there. He says, You'd be good at that job.

(LAUGHTER)

LAMB: So I mean, there's a case of where you weren't even trying to get the job, and he dropped the name in without you knowing it.

WILLIAM RUCKELSHAUS: That's right. He had -- he was working then back with the Public Health Service in New York. He was the first EPA administrator, regional administrator in New York City, after I was appointed, because he was terrific. He did a wonderful job there.

You can watch the entire interview, or read the transcript, right here on the C-SPAN Q & A site.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 17, 2005 02:30 PM
Posted to Environment