Former governor Christine Todd Whitman speaks at Whig-Clio Event

Politics plays an important role in environmental policy, former New Jersey governor and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman said at a lecture on Monday.

Whitman set political records when she became New Jersey’s first female governor from 1994 to 2001. She was also the first Republican woman to defeat an incumbent governor in a general election and the first to be reelected for another term.

Whitman later headed the Environmental Protection Agencyfrom 2001-03 under the George W. Bush administration, and is currently the leader of theWhitman Strategy Group, focusing on energy initiatives and consulting.

Whitman, whose parents were also active in politics, said that her break in politics was a lucky opportunity. She explained that she spent a few years working in the Office of Economic Opportunity under Donald Rumsfeld ’54, and was part of the national outreach tour for the Republican National Committee.

“There was a lot of turmoil in the country due to the Vietnam War, and it came up that Republicans ought to go talk across college campuses,” she said.

She said that her most notable reforms as governor were in environmental policy, which she attributed to her childhood living on a farm.

“When you live that close to the land, you see the impact people can make on it,” she said.

Instituting the first mandatory recycling law in the state was one of the first of her reforms for the state of New Jersey, she said. Whitman also focused on environmentally sustainable initiatives, and she said that she is optimistic about people’s understanding of the importance of the environment.

“People of New Jersey are willing to tax themselves more for the sake of the environment,” she explained.

However, she added that the dichotomy between understanding and acting is wide.

“People don’t really understand the cumulative impact of individual behavior,” she said, referring to careless habits such as dumping motor oil into sewers and streams.

She suggested a non-traditional approach to informing citizens, something that was put into practice during her time as EPA administrator. Such approaches would involve having meteorologists inform viewers to follow environmentally friendly practices, such as not adding pesticides before rain.

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Whitman also said that energy initiatives should not be ignored, noting that there are a number of opportunities in the energy field that can generate jobs.

“We cannot say environmental regulation kills the economy, because it doesn’t,” she noted. She cited an example of a doubling GDP accompanied by a decline in carbon dioxide levels as well as pollution.

When asked about her position as a woman in politics and how being a woman has affected her life and career, Whitman said that there is still a double standard in politics. She said that she also believes that women must support each other in politics and that women are occasionally guilty of being sexist against other women. She noted that she remembered being criticized and having her abilities questioned as a politician because she is a woman and mother.

“I have a lot of titles in my life, but one will never change, and that is ‘mother’,” she said.

Whitman said that she didn’t know if she would be considered a strict Republican today due to changing platforms, and said that she encourages Republicans to work alongside President Barack Obama in order to create lasting changes, particularly on the Affordable Care Act.

The lecture was sponsored by theAmerican Whig–Cliosophic Society and took place at 4:30 p.m. on Monday in the Whig Hall Senate Chamber.