March/April 1993
Here's a quick look at the woman who'll help guide environmental policy in the United States.
BY TRINA BELLAK-BRONFMAN
Trina Bellak-Bronfman is a Bethesda, Md.-based environmental consultant and lobbyist. She was formerly the congressional affairs associate for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (Washington, D.C.).
She calls herself an environmentalist and has a reputation as a tough negotiator and innovative regulator. She's Carol M. Browner, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
How will this 37-year-old native of Florida shape the agency and President Bill Clinton's environmental strategies? There's no clear-cut answer, but a variety of business interests have given Browner high marks for her intelligence and preparedness. She's also noted for working closely with coalitions of business leaders on major environmental issues in Florida, where she previously served as secretary of the state's Department of Environmental Regulation (DER). On the other hand, some in the business community have faulted her for an unwillingness to compromise.
During her Senate confirmation hearing, Browner avoided detailed discussion of the direction of administration's environmental policies, and few specifics of the Clinton/Gore environmental agenda are yet known. (For further details, see "Environmental Agenda Awaits Clinton," on page 49.) What is known is that Browner has voiced support for a national container-deposit law to encourage recycling as well as a two-year ban on construction of waste incinerators. In Florida , she also spoke in favor of packaging legislation that would require recycled content and ban use of toxic materials.
Up the Ladder Quickly
Browner, the first U.S.-born member of a family that emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, grew up in the Miami area, spending a lot of free time in the Florida Everglades and Keys. In 1980, with a bachelor's degree in English literature and a law degree from the University of Florida (Gainesville, Fla.) in hand, she was hired as general counsel for the Florida House of Representatives's Government Operations Committee, where her duties included environmental issues, such as conducting negotiations related to public acquisition of environmentally sensitive land and to bans on oil drilling in the Keys.
Just a couple years later, after helping manage an unsuccessful congressional campaign for the committee chairman, Rep. George Sheldon, Browner became associate director of Citizen Action (Washington, D.C.), a grassroots lobbying group concerned with environmental, energy conservation, campaign finance reform, and health care issues.
In 1986, she moved on to become Sen. Lawton Chiles's (D-Fla.) legislative aide responsible for environment, labor, and children's issues. And when Chiles subsequently decided not to seek re-election to the Senate, Browner briefly worked for the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee before becoming legislative director for then-Sen. Al Gore (D-Tenn.), with whom she worked closely on key environmental issues and legislation.
After about two years as Gore's aide, Browner and her husband Michael Podhorze—who works for Citizen Action—bought a house in the Washington, D.C., area. While they were still unpacking, Chiles, who had been elected governor of Florida , offered her the top job at the Florida DER, and Browner traded in her Senate staff post for one ofFlorida 's highest-profile jobs—head of a 1,700-employee agency charged with enforcing pollution laws, regulating development, and protecting the state's air and water. At the time, Browner announced that she considered herself an "environmentalist," and during her first speech as head of the DER , she said, "My mission is to protect the resources ... it's about preserving ecosystems, whatever it takes." She also insisted, however, that she would not be "anti-development" or "anti-business."
Agenda Expectations
Daniel J. Weiss, director of the Sierra Club's Environmental Quality Program (Washington, D.C.), has said of Browner: " Florida has every environmental problem this country faces, and it's got every key business interest. Carol Browner has successfully navigated through these very rocky shoals to produce strong environmental policy in Florida."
While industry lobbyists call her bright, quick, and aggressive, Browner's ties to Vice President Gore have made many in the business community nervous. Nevertheless, she was careful in her confirmation hearing to echo a Clinton/Gore campaign theme that environmental protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive and to emphasize that she favors encouraging environmental compliance through incentives rather than coercion. She also testified that she hopes her tenure at the EPA will mark a "new era" in communication between environmentalists and business leaders.
Considering her work as a key negotiator in Florida , she may have the experience to do just that. While heading the state DER , she led Florida in quickly settling a suit brought against the state by the federal government for failure to protect the Everglades—in which the state admitted culpability—and won passage of controversial legislation to implement the settlement. She also negotiated an agreement that required Walt Disney World to buy and protect from development 8,500 acres of fragile land in exchange for permission to develop a few hundred acres of its property in central Florida.
This kind of leadership and Browner's varied achievements at the DER have been credited with bringing new life to the agency. Charles Lee, senior vice president of the Florida Audubon Society (Cassellberry, Fla.), for instance, says she turned the "severely demoralized" environmental agency into a tougher watchdog for environmental interests. And in September, Browner won the Nature Conservancy's (Arlington, Va.) President's Conservation Achievement Award, the highest honor the conservation group gives to public officials.
Still, while that ability could prove beneficial in her new job at the EPA—which many consider a dispirited agency—the question remains as to how ready she is to run a major federal agency with 17,000 employees, and what the policy results might be if her job is elevated to a cabinet-level post. In any case, it seems safe to predict more-aggressive controls from the EPA under Browner than those established by her predecessors in the Reagan and Bush administrations. It's also quite likely that Browner and the EPA will pursue Vice President's Gore's agenda—"to restore, protect, and preserve the Earth in balance."
Here's a quick look at the woman who'll help guide environmental policy in the United States.