Lisa P. Jackson
Lisa Perez Jackson ( born February 8, 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American chemical engineer and politician of the Democratic Party. By February 2013, it was the head of the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA). She was the first African-American woman in that office. Previously, she worked for six years at the State Environmental Protection Administration of New Jersey (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ). There she served as Deputy Commissioner and later Commissioner. Before that, she spent 16 years at the EPA.
Family life and education
Lisa Jackson was born in Philadelphia and adopted a few weeks after her birth. She grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans ( Louisiana) and completed successfully in 1979 as valedictorian at Saint Mary's Dominican High School in New Orleans her schooling from. Jackson earned a master's degree in chemical engineering at Princeton University. She graduated summa cum laude from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at Tulane University.
Her adoptive mother lived in New Orleans at the time when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city in 2005. Jackson is married to Kenneth Jackson and has two children.
Career
Early career
Jackson began her career around 1986 at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA ) at its headquarters in Washington, DC. Then moved to its regional office in New York City.
She developed and oversaw numerous projects for disposal of special waste in Central New Jersey, for their financial worth several million dollars, she was also responsible. Later she worked as deputy director, then as director of the regional administrative enforcement authority. After 16 years with the EPA Jackson joined in March 2002 on Environmental Protection Authority of New Jersey (DEP ), where she served as Deputy Commissioner for the monitoring and enforcement of legal environmental regulations. In 2005, she was Deputy Commissioner for the areas of land use and spatial planning.
Jackson led numerous programs, including in the areas of land use, water supply, soil analysis, investigation and monitoring of drinking water and groundwater. Their main activity was the development of a system of incentives for growth in the right places. Under her leadership, the State Department of Environmental Protection developed regulatory standards for the implementation of the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act.
New Jersey's Commissioner of Environmental Protection
Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey, she was nominated as a Commissioner for the Environment. In this position, Jackson led a staff of 2990 civil servants who were responsible for the protection and preservation and improvement of the water, the air and the environment in New Jersey, as well as for the preservation of the natural resources of the state.
In addition to its task of implementation and monitoring of state environmental programs, Jackson was also responsible for the management of public parks and beaches, and for programs to aquaculture, programs for the protection of the wild animal population and for the preservation order. In July 2006, she was forced to close as a Commissioner all public parks and beach resorts in the course of public savings and the freezing of funds.
As head of the authority which was responsible for the compliance and enforcement of environmental regulations, she sat in Camden and Paterson environmental protection measures with direct coercion by, in two communities in which the effects of pollution had been neglected on health for some time. She called an environmental initiative launched after extensive efforts were made to include the regional administration and local businesses and in the program. In collaboration with the district administration, the New Jersey State Police and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has mobilized more than 70 inspectors to conduct more than 1,000 studies on compliance with environmental regulations in the two cities, the first of a series of other action to enforce the law.
The environmental magazine Grist interviewed several environmental activists in New Jersey and reported that the opinion about Jackson is divided: " The plan seems to be between those who are in the areas of energy and climate work in the capital of the state ( the Jackson support ) and those responsible on site for the disposal of toxic waste (which you are critical of ). "
Chief of Staff of the Governor of New Jersey
On 24 October 2008 announced Corzine that Jackson will assume the office of his chief of staff December 1, 2008, as the successor of Bradley Abelow. As chief of staff Jackson, Corzine's main advisor and head of the main political liaison office with the legislature of the State of New Jersey would have been. However, she was asked by Barack Obama just days after her appointment to become head of the EPA. She resigned on 15 December 2008.
Head of the Environmental Protection Agency
On 15 December 2008, the President-elect Barack Obama Jackson's nomination to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency proposed officially. She was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 23, 2009. Jackson is the first African American to head the EPA, was the fourth woman and second person from New Jersey in the office.
On December 27, 2012 Lisa Perez Jackson announced her resignation as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Since February 19, 2013 Bob Perciasepe leads whereas transitional authority.