If there was one thing, (click here) one precious thing, that Lisa Jackson's mother wishes she could have saved before the hurricane came—when Lisa stood over her bed on the eve of Katrina and said, "Mama, wake up, we have to go, we have to go now," and gently helped her diabetic mother into her wheelchair and then to the car for an 18-hour drive out of hell—it wouldn't have been her sacred rosary beads or her silverware (both of which miraculously survived) but that photograph. Of Lisa at age 3. In Washington, D.C., in 1965. Oh, it was a big deal back then to go to Washington, D.C.—to drive all the way from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, at a time when black people still had to worry about what might happen if they stopped at the wrong traffic light. But Lisa's parents were determined to show their daughter, "our little jewel," says her mother—the baby they brought home from an orphanage when she was two weeks old—everything they possibly could about the world....
...By the 1960s, American industries exploited an atmosphere of lawlessness, in which the dumping of industrial waste and the pumping of factory smokestack emissions went practically unchecked. But by 1970, consciousness had been sufficiently raised to turn environmentalism into a movement: On April 22 of that year, 20 million Americans hit the streets and parks for the first-ever Earth Day. (As Jackson likes to say, when it comes to the environment, the biggest strides start at the grassroots level, with people saying, Enough already.)...
...Jackson graduated summa cum laude in chemical engineering, the only female in her class to do so, and headed to Princeton for a master's (she has a photo of herself wearing large pink hair rollers while packing the car for the Ivy League: "That was the hot thing—pink rollers, baby")...
...she worked for the EPA, a few blocks from the World Trade Center. (On September 11, 2001, rushing out of the building after the first tower was hit, she saw a panicked coworker in a wheelchair and proceeded to push the woman 49 blocks to safety).....
...But even with lawmakers trying everything they can to curtail the EPA's efforts, Jackson is up for the fight. "The politics are one thing," she says. "I got used to tough politics in New Jersey," where she was commissioner of that state's Department of Environmental Protection. "And I like the give-and-take of a real democracy. But I like hearing from real people, not special interests. It's what I came to D.C. to do—to ensure that the EPA protects the average American, not corporate profits. The hardest fights are the ones that I see happening in a 'fact-free zone.' Facts matter. And politics shouldn't trump science and public health."...
Among the other challenges she's squaring up for: Jackson is determined to protect air quality and reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and to restore health to the Chesapeake Bay, a major waterway currently being smothered by nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff and air pollution. The cleanup is now 25 years behind schedule; House Republicans are proposing a 20 percent reduction in the funds it would require....
..."Our challenges are serious," she says. "The longer we wait to deal with our deteriorating atmosphere, the harder and more expensive it may get to address it. I am also a woman of faith, so I believe that we have a moral obligation to care for creation and future generations.
"The conundrum is that the richer and more prosperous we become, the more we think that the environment is all taken care of," Jackson says. It's simply not the case. "I have seen land completely ravaged by pollution. Environmental protection is not a spectator sport."...
