Lynn Buhl is the Deputy Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Enforcement
and Compliance Assurance (OECA) in Washington, DC. OECA’s mission is to improve
the environment and protect public health by ensuring compliance with the
nation’s environmental laws, preventing pollution, and promoting environmental
stewardship. As Deputy Assistant Administrator, Ms. Buhl serves as the deputy
political official for EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance office, with
approximately 3,300 environmental professionals and an annual budget of more
than $500 million. Ms. Buhl has a broad range of environmental experience. From
2003 until 2006, she advised Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich on environmental
and policy issues in several different capacities. She served most recently as
the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources, where her
responsibilities included policy development, program adjustments,
communications issues and personnel matters. Prior to joining the Department of
Natural Resources, she served as the Acting Secretary of the Department of the
Environment, and later as co-chair of the Governor’s team responsible for
developing and guiding legislation to reform Maryland’s contaminated site
cleanup program. Ms. Buhl previously worked as the Director of the Southeast
Offices of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality from 1999 to 2002,
and as Senior Staff Counsel for Environmental Legal Affairs at DaimlerChrysler
Corporation from 1988 until 1999. In her eleven years with Chrysler, she was
responsible for Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
defense work, voluntary remediation at company-owned sites, facility
deactivation issues, real estate transactions and environmental due diligence.
During her tenure, Chrysler became recognized nationally as a leader in
brownfield redevelopment. In addition, in the mid-1990s, she was the
spokesperson on Superfund reform for the American Automobile Manufacturers
Association and in that capacity represented the industry in federal legislative
negotiations and in testimony before Congress. During the same time frame, Ms.
Buhl served as trustee and chairman of the Higgins Lake Foundation, a non-profit
organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the quality and beauty of
Higgins Lake, Michigan. The foundation raised $1 million in endowment funds
during that period and began addressing sources of nutrient loading into the
lake, including surface water runoff, septic systems and erosion due to high
winter lake levels. In 1995, Ms. Buhl was recognized by the Environmental Law
Institute as a “Person to Know”in the environmental field.
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Buhl Foes Confident on Senate Vote; Md. GOP Seeking Ways to Save Face
[FINAL Edition] The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Author: Lori Montgomery
Date: Mar 6, 2003
Start Page: B.01
Section: METRO
With 14 Republican senators, [Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.] needs at least 10 Democrats
to save the nomination. Yesterday, Ehrlich's appointments secretary, Lawrence J.
Hogan Jr., and former Republican senator Martin G. Madden worked the chamber as
[Lynn Buhl] hustled to meetings with undecided Democrats, including Katherine A.
Klausmeier (Baltimore County), George W. Della Jr. (Baltimore) and P.J. Hogan
(Montgomery). Buhl was scheduled to meet today with a fourth undecided Senate
Democrat, Gloria G. Lawlah (Prince George's).
Asked about the possibility that Republicans could try to save Buhl's position
by maneuvering the nomination into legislative limbo, Madden said: "We are
preparing for all eventualities. But the governor is totally committed to
Secretary Buhl."
Only five Democrats declared an intention to support Buhl: Thomas M. Middleton
(Charles), James E. DeGrange Sr. (Anne Arundel), John C. Astle (Anne Arundel),
Edward J. Kasemeyer (Baltimore County) and Norman R. Stone Jr. (Baltimore
County). All five said that Buhl is qualified and that environmentalists have
failed to make a compelling case for denying Ehrlich the right to assemble his
own team.
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The Two Stories of Lynn Buhl
Maryland Senate Will Write the Next Chapter
There’s two sides to every story.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich says his nominee to head Maryland’s Department of the
Environment, former mid-tier Michigan environmental bureaucrat Lynn Buhl,
is “a business-savvy lawyer and environmentalist who will effectively strike a
careful balance between a healthy environment and a healthy economy.”
That’s one side of the story.
The other side is that Buhl’s the wrong woman for the job
.
“She’s not sufficiently experienced, not sufficiently familiar with Maryland’s
unique environmental problems — and she arrives here from one of the most
anti-environmental state agencies in the country,” counters
environmental activist and lawyer Terry Harris.
Harris, of Baltimore, directs the Cleanup Coalition, organized in 1998 in
response to the plight of Wagner Point, a Baltimore neighborhood languishing
amid a circle of chemical plants. The entire community was eventually relocated.
The coalition has since helped other neighborhoods with emergency planning and
brownfield clean-up, Harris says.
Other environmental organizations, like League of Conservation Voters, are
“concerned about Buhl and the culture she comes from in terms of the future of
our Maryland agency when it comes to strong enforcement,” says League executive
director Sue Brown.
The Cleanup Coalition is a small player on Maryland’s environmental scene, but
it’s taken its concern to the plate.
“This is the most important position on the environment in Maryland,” says
Harris, “and she’s just not right for the job.”
Of his talking campaign to keep Buhl out of Maryland Department of the
Environment, Harris says: “You go to where the choke point is and that’s the
Senate,”
He’s making his case this week in advance of the Senate Executive Nominations
Committee’s consideration of Buhl on March 3. Ten votes in committee would take
the nomination to the entire senate with a negative recommendation. On the
Senate floor, Harris would need 24 no’s. Then, he hopes, “the nomination won’t
go forward.”
Harris bases his objections to Buhl on “the Michigan record,” which, he says,
“has been horrible for the environment.”
Back to the other side of the story.
Harris’ is the kind of “kneejerk reaction,” that, says Lt. Gov. Michael Steele,
provoked him to label opponents of Buhl’s nomination “whiners.”
Reprising a linguistic directness of Spiro Agnew, Maryland’s last Republican
governor, practiced as Richard Nixon’s vice president, Lt. Steele said “You are
a whiner when you base your objections to a woman you don’t know on [the reports
of] groups against her out in Michigan.
“Give her one or two years,” he told Bay Weekly in an interview, “and I’m sure
you’ll see that she’ll adapt and that all the whining was unnecessary.”
There are two sides to every story, but only one will prevail. As soon as next
week, we could know if Lynn Buhl will be given her chance.
Source: TRW
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