Lisa Perez Jackson jokes that she wishes she had her own action figure. Sometimes, she says, she’s envious when sharing a stage with icons like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or actor and environmentalist Harrison Ford, who have been immortalized as the Terminator and Star Wars’ Han Solo, respectively. A Lisa Jackson superhero might use her incredible strength and invisible rays to clean air and water, rid the land of pollution, slow down climate change, switch America to clean energy, regulate chemicals and toxins and fight for all Americans to have safe and healthy places to live and work. A fantasy? Only the part about super powers. The rest of the scenario fits with the actions Jackson has taken in reality as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A 1983 summa cum laude graduate (the top student in the class) in chemical engineering at Tulane, Jackson has headed the EPA since January 2009. Jackson told the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco in September, the day before Ford introduced her to speak at Schwarzenegger’s climate summit, that her top priorities are “confronting climate change and getting America running on clean energy, protecting and cleaning up our air and water, updating our country’s regulations and laws on chemicals and toxins, and expanding the conversation on environmentalism.” An ambitious agenda? Yes. But if anyone is prepared to lead the 40-year-old EPA, it is Lisa Jackson, most observers agree. She’s equipped to enter a fray comprising environmental, business, economic, scientific and political interests. After she graduated from Tulane, Jackson earned a master’s degree from Princeton University and then spent 16 years in the trenches of the EPA. Before President Barack Obama nominated her to lead the EPA, Jackson was head of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection. “I strive to be a person on the front line serving my community,” said Jackson, who was pulled toward public service by the example of her father, a mailman in New Orleans, whose
TULANIAN
WINTER 2010
| PAGE 13