The current front-runner to replace Christie Todd Whitman as EPA Administrator is Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne. He would be an unfortunate choice. While Kempthorne is better than some of the names floated to date (e.g. Whitman’s number two, Linda Fisher), Kempthorne would likely give the administration both bad policy and bad P.R. In the Senate, Kempthorne led the charge to adopt amendments to the Endangered Species Act that catered to big business and major environmental groups, at the expense of small property owners. The original sponsor of unfunded mandates legislation, Kempthorne watered down his bill to ensure passage by consensus. The result was a meaningless law. Again with his efforts to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act, Kempthorne was more interested in passing “reform” than in getting reform right. Only the intervention of more conservative Senators saved the substance of the bill.

Despite this history, Kempthorne’s conservative reputation ensured that anything he did was labeled a right-wing attack on environmental laws. It would likely be the same at the EPA: Kempthorne would be savaged in the press any time he sought to reform existing rules, while his actual record would be no better than Whitman’s. The Bush Administration can do better at EPA than this.