Senate committee advances controversial environmental head
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HARRISBURG -- It's no secret around the Capitol that John Hanger, a longtime prominent environmentalist who's now the state's acting environmental secretary, has had serious clashes with some Republican senators, such as Mary Jo White of Venango and Don White of Indiana.
"Until I met you a few weeks ago, I thought you had horns and a tail," Mr. White told Mr. Hanger at a Senate environmental panel hearing today on whether he should be confirmed as secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Mr. Hanger "used to consider coal a four-letter word," Mr. White said later. He criticized coal as a electric power source "because of what it did to the environment," the senator said.
That didn't go over well in his Senate district because it has plenty of coal and plants that use it to produce a lot of electricity, Mr. White said.
From 1998-2008 Mr. Hanger ran Penn Future, which has had frequent policy disputes with the DEP and has filed some lawsuits against it. From 1993-98 he served on the state Public Utility Commission.
The two senators aren't related. Mrs. White said she had no questions about Mr. Hanger's intelligence or abilities, "but I do question your temperament," and some derogatory comments that either he or other Penn Future members made about legislators over the years.
One comment concerned a difference of opinion over timetables and costs for forcing power plants to remove mercury emissions produced by burning coal. The emissions can get into water and then into fish and can be harmful when people eat the fish.
Mrs. White contended that either Mr. Hanger or his fellow environmentalists had called senators "baby killers" because they disagreed over how fast and sweeping the air pollution regulations should be.
Mr. Hanger said he'd been in public life for 30 years and "Over 30 years, I have said some things I regret."
On April 19, 2006, Mrs. White said Mr. Hanger said the following: "One would hope that lobbyists for mercury polluters would have gotten a cold reception from our legislators. But too many have rolled out the welcome mat to those that pump mercury in our air, water and into us ... and toxic dollars into the coffers of politicians.''
Mrs. White said, "You can say this committee is as dumb as a box of rocks and I don't care. But when you imply we're corrupt, it's outrageous," she said. "I can't buy that."
Mr. Hanger said he'd also made many positive comments about legislators, including Mrs. White. "I have a huge amount of respect for people who put their name on a ballot," he said. "It's a difficult thing to do."
As for past disagreements, he said, "I hope we can move forward."
He said there's a big difference between being "an advocate'' for environmental issues, as he was with Penn Future, and being a public official who must consider all sides to an issue. He said he knows about seeing all sides of issues from his years on the PUC.
"I understand the difference between being an advocate, or being an attorney for a client, and being a public official," he said. "It's a heavy responsibility to listen to everyone as a public official."
The committee voted 11-0 to send Mr. Hanger's nomination to the full Senate, which may vote on it April 22.
More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
First Published April 1, 2009 12:48 pm
