June 24, 2003 08:08 AM

Bush's top pick to run the EPA after Whitman resigned is Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne.

You may find this shocking, but Idaho's environment has gotten dramatically worse under Kempthorne's leadership, while the rest of the country's has gotten better on average. He cut the state environmental budget three times and didn't enforce many environmental regulations. He's done so much to hurt the environment that a court order has been issued forcing the state to increase "monitoring and cleansing of polluted waterways."

Kempthorne: "I have become so frustrated with EPA that I'm on the verge of inviting EPA to leave Idaho. ... There is a bureaucracy that seems to ignore any efforts at a solution."

Kempthorne's press secretary: "He has not neglected nor turned his back on the environment [The achievements of the administration are] quite remarkable. There's a lot more to the records than raw numbers would show."

We all know why Bush wants to hire him, though. He wears a cowboy hat, and that's all the credentials you need.

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