By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lisa Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, needs to restore integrity to a department that fallen into disrepute, Democratic senators said on Wednesday.
Jackson, commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection and a 15-year veteran of the federal environment agency, vowed to be guided by science and the rule of law if confirmed as U.S. EPA administrator.
"If I am confirmed, I will administer with science as my guide," Jackson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which considered her nomination. "Political appointees will not compromise the integrity of EPA's technical experts to advance particular regulatory outcomes."
This was in contrast to the reputation of the environment agency under President George W. Bush. Critics have accused his administration of favoring industry and politics over environmental science.
Jackson's confirmation is virtually assured, as is the confirmation of Nancy Sutley, currently deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles. Sutley's nomination to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality was also being considered by the Senate environment committee.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the committee, indicated she would use a procedural tool called a discharge petition to move the two nominations out of committee and quickly to a vote on the Senate floor. That vote could come as early as January 20, Inauguration Day.
BARBS FOR CURRENT EPA CHIEF
The hearing was loaded with barbs for the departing Bush EPA chief, Stephen Johnson, a career agency scientist who has nonetheless drawn fire for failure to take action to curb the greenhouse emissions that spur climate change.
"This is an agency that has fallen into significant disrepute," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said. "More than anything else it needs its integrity restored ... Administrator Johnson has been a disgrace."
"For the past eight years, the Bush administration has not provided the leadership we need on some of the biggest environmental challenges of our time -- global warming, energy independence and cleaning up our nation's air," Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, told the committee.
Boxer, who in the past called for Johnson's resignation, said the agency "needs to be awakened from a deep and nightmarish sleep."
Republican senators, including ranking committee member James Inhofe of Oklahoma, defended Johnson's record but also said they looked forward to working with Jackson, an indication that she has little opposition on this committee.
Also on Wednesday, former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman wrote in the journal Nature that that she was overruled on environmental policy issues by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Morale is low among "many highly talented" people at EPA because they have been ignored, said Whitman, who headed the agency from 2001 to 2003.
(Additional reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
