The Bush Administration fired U.S. EPA Region 5 Administrator, Mary A. Gade, over her handling of a cleanup of dioxin released by Dow Chemical. The Bush Adminstration appointed Ms. Gade as Regional Administrator of EPA Region 5 in October 2006. In that role, she oversees federal environmental programs in the Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Ms. Gade is an environmental attorney with more than 20 years of experience in environmental regulation and enforcement at the federal and state levels, as well as extensive private sector experience. Since 1999, she had been a partner in the national environmental practice group of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP in Chicago. She had previously served as director of Illinois EPA under Gov. Jim Edgar. During her eight years there, she was a co-founder of the national Environmental Council of States. Before her state tenure, Ms. Gade had a career at EPA with senior management positions in key areas such as emergency response, Superfund cleanup and pollution prevention. At EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., she served as deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. She previously held two senior positions at EPA Region 5 – associate division director for Superfund, and deputy director of the Waste Management Division. Ms. Gade holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, and a J.D. from Washington University School of Law.
Ms. Gade told the Chicago Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1. Story at http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-epa-official-resigns_webmay02,0,4655733.story. This story sounds errily similar to the Bush Adminstration’s previous firing of U.S. Attorneys for political reasons.