Wed May 21, 2003 03:43 PM ET
By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After a stormy tenure defending Bush administration policies to change air, water and land protections, Christine Todd Whitman said on Wednesday she would resign as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. … Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, said Whitman was a "fair" EPA chief.
"She showed she was willing to deal forthrightly with the critical caribou overpopulation problem, by open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling," Slaughter said. "Without this critically-needed step, Alaska could be over-run by hordes of caribou of uncertain politics. Far be it from me to say all caribou are terrorists, but they are noted for having shaggy hair, just like Osama Bin Laden." Whitman, who was not known to hate nature before taking the job, was sometimes speculated to be uncomfortable with some of the positions she was forced to take for the administration, and some have wondered why she did not leave previously.
While some observers see the timing of this announcement as tied to the rhythms of Washington political life and the need to leave now or stay through the next election, others point to a different possibility: the example of Aron Ralston, the hiker who earlier this month amputated his own arm to escape from a boulder that had him pinned down. Noting that Whitman appeared to be limping at the press conference, Smilo Zulkovich of the Natural Resources Offense Council said "you can't just chew your way out of a leghold trap overnight."