Wyoming's senior U.S. Senator, Mike Enzi, had harsh criticism about the Environmental Protection Agency, this after the EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, says she'll be stepping down.  Enzi says that the EPA has been both anti-energy and anti-Wyoming.

Jackson announced her departure in a statement Thursday. She gave no particular reason for leaving but said she was ready for new challenges, time with her family and new opportunities to make a difference.

Jackson’s tenure was marked by high-profile brawls, including the fight over whether hydraulic fracturing was causing groundwater pollution in the tiny Wyoming community of Pavillion

She says she’s leaving the agency, in her words, “confident the ship is sailing in the right direction.”

Senator Enzi, however, had harsh criticism for this administration of the EPA in a press release on Thursday, saying that even with Jackson on the way out, he doesn't see change in the future.

 “Under this Administration, the EPA has had an anti-energy and therefore anti-Wyoming agenda. The regulations and red tape that have flowed from this one agency have helped slow our economic recovery and have ignored the concerns of farmers, ranchers, and our energy industry. Unfortunately, this is being driven by the White House and I’m not convinced that a new agency head will make much of a difference in the policies we will see over the next four years. There is always a possibility that someone with a more aggressive environmental agenda will lead the EPA in its war on coal and traditional forms of energy.”

Jackson is expected to leave after the State of the Union address in late January. Cabinet members looking to move on often leave at the beginning of a president’s second term.

 

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