The Environmental Protection Agency will have a ceremony Wednesday to rename its headquarters after former President Bill Clinton, according to an email sent by acting administrator Bob Perciasepe.
Last year, Congress passed legislation authored by California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer to rename the EPA’s headquarters to the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building in remembrance of his environmental legacy.
“Bill Clinton demonstrated a strong commitment to protecting public health and the environment. [His] administration created the Office of Children’s Health Protection, tightened drinking water standards for toxins such as arsenic, and reduced harmful air pollution that causes heart attacks, strokes, and premature deaths,” said Boxer. “He has continued to champion the environment.”
The Clinton administration made environmental protection a key platform during his presidency, even promising to put corporate polluters in jail if necessary. Clinton’s environmental credentials were boosted by his vice president, environmental activist Al Gore, and his EPA administrator, Carol Browner.
Gore is best known for his global warming activism and making the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Browner’s name recently came up in the press in the wake of the “Richard Windsor” scandal, when it was discovered that she instituted the EPA’s practice of using “alias” email accounts.
“You remember Ms. Browner, the lady who suddenly ordered her computer hard drive reformatted and backup tapes erased, hours after a federal court issued a ‘preserve’ order … that her lawyers at the Clinton Justice Department insisted they hadn’t yet told her about?” said CEI senior fellow Chris Horner, who discovered the use of alias accounts by EPA administrators. “The one who said it’s all good because she didn’t use her computer for email anyway? That one.”
Clinton has differed from environmentalists on some issues, however. He supports the Keystone XL pipeline, which virtually all environmental groups oppose. Earlier this year, the EPA suggested that the Department of State’s review of the pipeline didn’t adequately evaluate the environmental and climate impact of the project.
The agency was created under President Richard M. Nixon.
The EPA’s building formerly housed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and was previously named the “Ariel Rios Building.” Rios was an ATF agent killed in the line of duty.
“The ATF will honor the memory of Special Agent Ariel Rios by naming the reflecting pool at the current ATF headquarters as the ‘Ariel Rios Reflecting Pool,’ in accordance with the wishes of the family,” Perciasepe wrote in his email.
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