Excerpt- ... environmental and health threats are unambiguous, nonpartisan concerns. They affect us whether we live in a red state or a blue state. Contrary to more divisive issues, people of all backgrounds want swift action when they see these threats in their communities. This movement got started when it became clear that the forces of the market were not going to be enough to stop Los Angeles from becoming the smog capital of the world...The American people demanded a new mechanism for preventing pollution. The EPA was created and a suite of environmental laws was passed so that government could set and enforce standards. That was a bipartisan effort. The EPA was created by Richard Nixon – as everyone knows, a Republican. Its first Administrator was a Republican, and many of the great advances that have happened over the years have happened with bipartisan support. When I came into this job in 2009, my ambition was – in the face of a new generation of environmental challenges – to facilitate advances like what we saw in the early 1970s. And to do so with the same kind of bipartisan support. I’m proud to be part of an EPA that has mobilized science and the law to create modern and innovative protections for the health of the American people. I’m also proud to be working for a president who has said that “we can’t wait” on these issues. We came into office during a historic economic crisis. It would have been easy to tell the EPA to sit and wait. But President Obama knows that the choice between our economy and our environment is a false choice – and he directed us to hit the ground running. Please read full at EPA: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/539DCCE1E1D3619C85257949006AF753
