Leavitt's challenge.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt brings unanswered questions to his new role as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. This week, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Bush's nomination of Leavitt to succeed Christine Todd Whitman as EPA chief.

Democratic senators stalled Leavitt's confirmation for 56 days because of their unhappiness with the Bush administration's environmental record. Yet Leavitt himself came to Washington, D.C., with a record that does not reflect unremitting hostility to environmental laws and regulations. Most intriguingly, he collaborated with former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber in 1997 to promote a concept they termed "enlibra," a word they coined as "a symbol of balance and stewardship." Enlibra's essence was to somehow meld, among other things, market-based economics, local empowerment, collaborative decision-making and incentive-driven processes.

Kitzhaber's Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watershed Restoration and Leavitt's Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission, created to clear up the haze over the Utah-Arizona border, are examples of the two governors' attempts to resolve difficult environmental problems through partnerships and local action rather than top-down mandates.

The Bush administration is plainly unenthusiastic about environmental protection. During her tenure, Whitman was whipsawed between her legal obligations to protect the nation's air, land and water and the administration's pursuit of industry-friendly policies. The former New Jersey governor, a moderate by instinct, was often at odds with others in the administration who sought to loosen, unravel, roll back or ignore environmental rules.

Leavitt's record as governor of supporting freeways and opposing wilderness designations is of obvious concern to environmentalists. But rather than trying to steamroll environmentalists in the confirmation process, the administration took the promising tactic of negotiating with Senate Democrats. In the end, perhaps Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., best summed up his colleagues' view of Leavitt:

Leavitt's confirmation, Jeffords said, "should not be seen as an endorsement of the Bush administration's environmental policies, but a vote in support of a fine and honorable man who has an extremely difficult job ahead."

In the end, even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton voted for Leavitt. She had opposed his nomination on the basis of the EPA inspector general's finding - under pressure from the White House - that softened the agency's assessment of the dangers from New York City residents' exposure to dust and debris from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

Mike Leavitt will be much scrutinized as head of the EPA. There's room for optimism that his record as an independent thinker will follow him into his new role and permit him to effectively manage the agency as a member of an administration whose commitment to the environment is, at best, iffy.