Superfund, Supermess

  • Share
  • Read Later

(4 of 5)

As a final fillip, Gorsuch learned of Lavelle's scathing memo on Perry. Lavelle was summoned to Gorsuch's office on Friday, Feb. 4, reprimanded ostensibly for the memo, and asked to resign. Lavelle initially okayed a press release announcing the resignation, but had second thoughts over the weekend and decided that as a presidential appointee she could take her case to the White House. The White House turned a deaf ear, however, and issued a curt statement on Monday that Lavelle was "terminated today at the request of the President." Gorsuch fired several of Lavelle's top aides and put an armed guard in front of her office to prevent her from removing files. "I felt my resignation would be tantamount to admitting I had something to hide," says a still feisty Lavelle. "I certainly do not." For her part, Gorsuch said she was troubled by Lavelle's "reluctance to enforce" the program. "I don't view the business community as our major constituency. I view the American people as our major constituents," she said. "My policy has been, and will continue to be, to request a strong enforcement policy for the Superfund."

But Congress was not convinced. At week's end Dingell's subcommittee voted to widen the Superfund probe by issuing new subpoenas for testimony from Lavelle, Gorsuch and 35 other EPA employees, plus dozens of additional documents. Democratic Congressman James J. Howard of New Jersey, chairman of the House Public Works Committee, demanded an FBI investigation of a recently installed paper shredder outside Lavelle's office that the EPA said had been used to destroy "excess copies" of documents withheld from the House. The EPA told Scheuer that Lavelle's appointment calendars, which he had subpoenaed, had "disappeared" while the agency was preparing a memo explaining erasures in them.

Despite Gorsuch's efforts to foster a different impression, the controversy has only heightened suspicions that her goal, and that of the Reagan Administration, is to slash the agency's budget and staff so deeply that its regulations become flaccid. Environmentalists like to say that during her stewardship, the EPA has been transformed into the "industry protection agency." Morale among employees has sunk so low that the EPA is the most leak-prone bureaucracy in town. "It's not easy to run an agency when the whole work force is either under subpoena or at the Xerox machine," a chagrined Gorsuch told TIME. Known to some subordinates as the "Ice Queen" for her cool demeanor and hard-line approach, Gorsuch has a simple motto: "Do more with less."

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5