Christie Whitman, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, will deliver the Commencement address at Hamilton College on Sunday, May 26, at 10:30 a.m.
Whitman was sworn in as President George Bush's EPA administrator in January 2001. She served previously as the 50th governor of New Jersey.
In testimony before the U.S. Senate in January, Whitman said she believed environmental and economic goals go hand in hand, and that she would continue her record of working to forge strong partnerships among citizens, government and business to produce measurable environmental results of cleaner air, water and land.
As EPA administrator Whitman says her focus in on cleaning up brownfields, old urban industrial sites, and on clean air. She recently sided with environmental groups against General Electric, ordering the company to pay $480 million to clean up toxic wastes it had dumped in the Hudson River. She also set acceptable levels of arsenic in drinking water at the same level proposed by the Clinton administration. Whitman has also taken a stand in demanding that the administration issue a policy, called Clear Skies, on new guidelines for clean air before it issued new rules for pollution controls on power plants.
As governor of New Jersey, Whitman developed a strong environmental record, working to provide cleaner air, water and land than when she was first elected in November 1993. Under her leadership New Jersey's air became significantly cleaner. The state is on target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels.
New Jersey's waterways, coasts and ocean waters also became cleaner while Whitman was in the governor's office. Beach closings reached a record low and the state earned recognition by the Natural Resources Defense Council for instituting the most comprehensive beach monitoring system in the nation. The governor won voter approval for a plan to break a longstanding impasse over dredging the state's ports that is both environmentally acceptable and economical and she established a new watershed management program. New Jersey now leads the nation on opening shellfish beds for harvesting.
As a preservationist, Whitman won voter approval for the state's first stable funding source to preserve one million more acres of open space and farmland within 10 years. By 2010, New Jersey will have permanently preserved 40 percent of its total landmass, with more than half preserved during her tenure. Whitman is an advocate for "smart growth," and in New Jersey she encouraged new growth in cities and other areas where roads, sewers and schools are already in place, She encouraged redevelopment of cities through programs to streamline cleanups of abandoned industrial brownfield sites.
Whitman was New Jersey's first female governor. She appointed New Jersey's first African-American State Supreme Court Justice, its first female State Supreme Court Chief Justice, and its first female attorney general.
Prior to becoming governor, Whitman headed the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and the Somerset County Board of Freeholders. She grew up in Hunterdon County, N.J., and earned a bachelor's degree in government from Wheaton College. She is married to John R. Whitman and has two children.
Hamilton's commencement ceremony will take place on the Main Quadrangle, or in the event of inclement weather, in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House. Approximately 418 Hamilton students will receive bachelor's degrees during the ceremony that marks the end of the college's 190th academic year.
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