US EPA Chief Having Had Mixed Success Steps Down. (December 28, 2012)

Lisa Jackson (50), director of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was one of US President Barack Obama's earliest appointees. She has now announced that she is resigning next month as head of the EPA having had mixed success in pressing her agenda to make science "the backbone" of the EPA's work.

Ms Jackson graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering in 1983 from Tulane University, and went on to receive a Master of Science degree, also in chemical engineering, from Princeton University in 1986.

John Broder, in his write-up for The New York Times noted: "After his re-election, and a campaign in which global warming was barely mentioned by either candidate, Mr. Obama said that his first priority would be jobs and the economy and that he intended only to foster a 'conversation' on climate change in the coming months."

During her four year term Ms Jackson had to endure Congress' rejection of the EPA's plans for developing a "cap-and-trade" regulatory system to reduce release of greenhouse gases while President Obama was cool on a number of EPA's  proposals for new regulations citing concerns about costs and economic impact.

One the other hand without doubt a crowning achievement was the upholding by the US Supreme Court of the EPA's contention that carbon dioxide and five other global warming gases endanger public health, and therefore are subject to regulation under the federal Clean Air Act.  As Mr Broder points out this has "allowed the agency to negotiate strict new emissions standards for cars and light trucks, the first time the federal government has limited global warming pollution.... [which] will eliminate billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions and double the fuel efficiency of the American light-duty transportation fleet over the next decade."

And she saw through the first rules controlling mercury pollution at power plants as well as bringing in stricter pollution controls on new coal-fired power plants.

In The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg's view: "Jackson managed to protect the EPA as one of the last remaining avenues left to the administration to act on climate change."