The Flow Of The River

The Machine in the Garden

Earlier this month a Chinese photographer admitted faking an award-winning photograph. The picture (below) shows a herd of endangered antelope passing near a train on a new rail line that has penetrated the high plains and mountains of Tibet. The line has been controversial because of its possible environmental effects.

By coincidence I recently met with EPA’s Office of International Affairs to discuss our progress in helping reduce pollution in Russia and China. One might ask why EPA should be working to reduce pollution on the other side of the world. Did you know, for instance, that over 80 percent of the mercury that winds up in the United States comes from sources outside of our country? It's important we continue to reduce mercury emissions here at home. But, while it may cost thousands of dollars to reduce the release of a pound of mercury in the U.S., for the same amount of money we can stop the release of over ten pounds elsewhere. So, EPA and our partners are working in places like Russia and China to reduce mercury emissions. Based on available information, in 2007 we helped reduce mercury emissions in Russia by nearly 3,500 pounds. That’s half of all the mercury released by U.S. electric utilities in 2006. Not bad.

Our work on mercury is commendable, but it’s the phony photograph which hints at a much broader potential. In 1854 Henry David Thoreau released Walden, a classic piece of environmental literature investigating the relationship between nature and industrialization at a crucial moment in American history. Thoreau used the train as a potent symbol of industry. The train was morally ambiguous, but it clearly signaled a relentless unstoppable change:

And hark! Here comes the cattle-train bearing the cattle of a thousand hills, sheepcoats, stables, and cow-yards in the air. . . . A carload of drovers, too, in the midst, on the level with their droves now, their vocation gone, but still clinging to their useless sticks as their badge of office . . . So is your pastoral life whirled past and away. But the bell rings, and I must get off the track and let the cars go by . . . .

A key belief for Americans at this time was the march of the nation across the wilds – the “draining of swamps, turning the course of rivers, peopling solitudes, and subduing nature.” It subsequently took over a hundred years for the American consciousness to understand that we don’t progress by subduing nature, we progress by sustaining nature.

There is now relentless change taking place elsewhere in the world. The values that propel this change over the next decade will dramatically affect our environment. EPA is in an unusual position to help other cultures leapfrog the lessons the United States had to learn the hard way. 

Lesson 1: you can’t fake it.

Why Hearings Are Good

In the aftermath of influenza and colds that swept through my family this winter, my house a mess. So I was surprised the other evening when my wife suggested we invite half a dozen people over for dinner. “Are you nuts?” I responded, “The place is a disaster area.” “Exactly,” she said.

If you don’t get that logic, you’re not alone. I’m a linear thinker. To me, first you clean the house and then you invite folks over. My spouse is more strategic than that. She realizes it may be months before we clean the house without a ‘time forcing event.’ She’s not interested in a dinner party, she wants the house straightened up.

Congressional hearings have a similar effect, but it’s the guests, rather than the hosts, who usually have more work to do.

The Administrator and I testified at a House hearing on EPA’s proposed 2009 budget today (see picture). I was just there for support, but I still figure I personally spent several hours preparing for this hearing. Was the hearing worth the time? Yes. Not all hearings are of the same quality, but if agency officials do it right, preparing for a hearing can be an excellent way to make sure the house is in order.

For instance, until I began preparing for this hearing I had no idea that for 2008 Congress moved over $2 million from Superfund’s removal, emergency response and Federal facility programs to the remedial program (which we’re proposing to move back). Likewise, I learned that, assuming current attrition rates, 92% of EPA’s senior managers will be eligible for retirement in 2013 (which is why we’re requesting an increase of $500,000 for leadership development).

The Administrator and I weren’t asked about these and many other things at the hearing, but it doesn’t matter. I feel better and more confident about where we are and what I know about where we are. I assume that effect also rippled through the EPA offices that helped prepare the Administrator and me for the hearing.

Of course the additional preparation time I needed for the hearing did have a cost – I had no time to help clean up at home. I’d tackle that tonight, but I have another hearing tomorrow.

Marcia Burns Knew How to Party

George Washington’s birthday is tomorrow. By all accounts he enjoyed a good party. Believe it or not, 200 years ago the place to party in Washington DC was the north courtyard of EPA’s Ariel Rios building. Of course, it wasn’t a courtyard then. It was the home of John P. Van Ness. On any given night you might have found Thomas Jefferson or Aaron Burr strutting the Van Ness red carpet.

A big draw was Mrs. Van Ness, née Marcia Burns. She was rich and powerful, but she didn’t let it go to her head. Indeed, she was admired for being modest, despite her fortune. Sculptor Haratio Greenbough poetically wrote of her:

Mid rank and wealth and worldly pride
From every snare she turned aside

She primarily used her influence to quietly bring people together. Historian James Barton Longacre observed, “As a hostess, indeed, perhaps none was ever more agreeable and popular. But she felt herself called upon to act a higher and nobler part in society . . . she widened the sphere of her affections, and became the general friend, the mediator, the counselor, of all within her reach.”

Like Marcia Burns, EPA has considerable clout, but we often quietly use our resources to help bring others together. Tuesday I touched on the vital work EPA performs in responding to disasters. For instance, we provided critical help in getting drinking water and sewer services back up and operating after Hurricane Katrina.

While EPA can do a lot to help waterworks and water treatment plants after a disaster, we know we can’t do it all. That’s why not long after Hurricane Katrina, along with the American Water Works Association, EPA started to use our influence to promote a voluntary system of mutual aid between water utilities. With a bit of grant money, a bit of technical assistance, and more than a bit of jawboning we encouraged states and utilities to come together and agree to help each other in times of need.

Today, almost half the states are a part of this system (see map) and more are joining all the time. That means in the future when a water utility in one part of the country gets hit by a disaster, they know water utilities in unaffected areas will help them assess the damage and get going as soon as possible. As a result victims will get drinking water faster and we’ll stop raw sewage polluting our water more quickly.

The Van Ness home has not been as fortunate. All that is left of it is a small marker. But the spirit of Marcia Burns still walks the halls of EPA. Yes, we regulate, award grants, enforce laws, and perform research but some of our best work happens when we simply create the right conditions for other folks who can do far more than we could ever do alone.

Three Surprises

Last Thursday night my wife and I attended a jazz performance at the White House. We were surprised to be there. We’d never been invited to an evening event before -- we figured the invitation was a mistake -- so we quickly said ‘yes.’ Over the course of the evening I was surprised two more times.

Entering the East Room of the White House, we sat at a small table near the drum set. Our daughter plays the drums, so we’re always looking for pointers. As the performers came in I pulled back from the table and turned my chair to face the stage, almost running into someone doing the same thing at the next table. Second surprise, it was the President of the United States.

“Mr. Peacock!” he exclaimed.

My response: “Hey . . . Mr. President . . . wow . . . good . . . ah . . . yeah . . . you.”

Translation: “Hey, Mr. President, I’m an idiot!”

The performance quickly started and after several songs by Denise Thimes the President thanked everyone and headed off to bed and then Africa. My wife and I had no such trip planned, so we lingered.

Third surprise: Herman Burney, Jr.  Herman backed up Ms. Thimes on the bass and we got to chatting with him.  Herman teaches music part-time. We have another daughter who plays bass guitar. “I tell kids there are three times you play music: practicing by yourself, rehearsing with a group, and then performing for an audience. If you can master practicing on your own, then you don’t have to worry about the other two times. They will fall right into place.”

I realize I’ve seen this with my own kids. They prefer practicing with their friends but those practices go much better when they come prepared, with their own house already in order. That allows them to concentrate on melding together as a group.

Like my kids preparing to perform a concert, EPA needs to prepare to perform as well. The Agency recently proposed our FY2009 budget. An important part of our request is $56 million to improve our ability to respond to disasters. For instance, we want to provide emergency preparedness training for 700 more EPA staff. That’s a lot of training, but we need it.

EPA responded extremely well to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Inspector General noted, “EPA’s ability to operate under catastrophic conditions was commendable.” Former Senator Jeffords said, “We’ve heard so much about what went wrong in Katrina’s aftermath, and this is one example of what went right.”

I personally know a lot of our success happened through sheer brute force and willpower. It was harder than it should have been. It particularly took a toll on those employees who were trained responders. Taking the lessons we learned to heart we are better prepared for an emergency now than we were in 2005.

Our new goal is to be ready and able to respond to five simultaneous emergencies. We’ve made progress, but we’re not there yet, hence the budget request. If we can get our own house in order, when the next disaster(s) happen(s), we can concentrate more quickly on working and melding with our response partners. We’ll be ready to perform.

I’ve also learned a lesson. I’ve started rehearsing what I would say if I ever find myself next to the President again at a White House party. Every time I sit down at a meal now I turn to whoever is at my left and say “Mr. President, how kind of you to have invited us.” It's good practice, even if I did kind of spook a guy at Taco Bell yesterday.

Guest Blog: Green Racing

On Valentine's Day I think it's only fitting to look at a sport lots of people love - auto racing. John Glenn and Tom Ball are a couple of EPA staff who think outside the glove box.

John Glenn and Tom Ball at the Green Racing announcement at the Detroit International Auto show

Both Tom and I have been racing fans most of our lives. It has been said that nothing accelerates the development of technology faster than war. If that is true, auto racing has to be a close second. In auto racing, winning is everything and the development of new technologies is relentless.

Tom and I wanted to harness this technology to make cleaner running, more efficient cars. We suggested creating a partnership with the Department of Energy and the Society of Auto Engineers (SAE) to promote “Green Racing.

Working with SAE, we created a work group that has developed a set of draft voluntary protocols that will turn racing into a laboratory for energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gasses and auto emissions without slowing the cars or spoiling the sport.

The draft protocols have five basic elements:
• The use of a renewable bio-based fuel or fuels;
• The use of multiple engines, fuels, and powertrains;
• The use of powertrains that recover and reuse braking energy;
• The use of energy allocations instead of detailed engine regulations; and
• The use of emission control strategies and systems.

Races that adopt the first three elements are eligible to be called Green Racing Challenge events.  Those that adopt all five are eligible to be called Green Racing Cup events.  EPA and DOE will award the Challenge and the Cup honors to the winning teams.

From left to right: David Amati, Ph.D., Director of Global Automotive Business, SAE; Ed Wall, Vehicle Technologies Program, DOE; Scott Atherton, President of the ALMS; and Margo Oge, Director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality standing in front of Chevrolet’s new Corvette race car that will run on cellulosic ethanol made from wood.

The idea is to encourage the adoption of racing rules that give advantages to competitors that incorporate renewable fuels and more efficient engine technologies. Consistent with the past history of racing, we expect the technology developed in green racing to make its way to the street. Professional auto racing is also a great platform for raising the public’s awareness of these new technologies.

Tom and I have been amazed at the attention the project has received. Nearly all the major car companies have shown interest. At a press event at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the American Le Mans series announced their intention to have the first Green Racing Challenge event in October 2008. They are planning to have sports cars that run on bio-diesel, cellulosic E- 10 and E-85 ethanols, and electric hybrids race against each other in a 1,000 mile race at speeds of up to 200 mph.

Although more work needs to be done in finalizing the protocols and working with ALMS on their plan for the Challenge, Green Racing is becoming a reality. We expect other racing organizations to see the advantages of this initiative and to adopt the elements of the protocols into their own series.

EPA’s Carbon Footprint

A few months ago I participated in “Ask EPA”, an online question and answer exercise that EPA sponsors about twice a month. One question I got was whether EPA has ever calculated its carbon footprint. While we very carefully track our energy use (see graph) I was not aware of EPA ever calculating the agency’s carbon footprint. That bothered me since we encourage others to estimate their footprint as a first step in reducing it.

So I asked around. Turns out the Department of Energy (DOE) has been calculating the carbon footprint of most federal agencies, including EPA, for a number of years. Every year they issue this information with a lot of other data on agency energy use. For fiscal year 2007 EPA’s emissions were estimated at the equivalent of approximately 112,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. (That’s about a tenth of the footprint of an average U.S. power plant.)

We’ve decided that this estimate is too crude for our purposes since it is simply based on multiplying our energy use by a single factor. We think it overestimates EPA’s footprint since DOE’s methodology does not take into account what types of energy are used (solar, coal, nuclear, hydropower, etc.). EPA uses green power (e.g., solar, landfill gas, wind, etc.) for 100% of our needs. So we’re developing a better estimate based on our actual fuel mix. We expect to have a more accurate estimate this month. That will provide a baseline we can use to measure future performance.

The Year of the Rat

The Chinese New Year started last week and many Chinese communities celebrated over the weekend. My family enjoyed a parade in Washington DC yesterday (see picture). According to Chinese custom, we are now in the Year of the Rat, the first of 12 rotating Chinese zodiacs. Another Chinese custom I learned yesterday involves Chinese children. On their first birthday a variety of objects, such as a coin, a book, a fish or a pen, are placed around the child or on a tray. The item the child touches first foreshadows what profession he or she will eventually pursue.

A few years ago it seemed as though EPA’s senior managers had gone through a similar process. Like many federal agencies, once an EPA manager rose to a particular position they tended to stay there. In 2004, well over half of our senior managers had been in the same position five years or more. Many had been in the same office for a decade or more. In other words, once they’d selected a position, that was it, no moving around. If you touched the fish first, you were destined to be in the Office of Water the rest of your years.

That may be good for building expertise in a subject, but it is not good for developing well-rounded managers who can easily communicate across organizational boundaries and take a wider view of agency work. Two years ago at the request of the Administrator, EPA started to put in place a program that would regularly encourage senior managers who have been in the same position for more than six years to consider rotating to another position. We went through the first round last year and 26 senior managers, about 10 percent of the senior management corps, found new assignments.

Today about a third of EPA’s senior managers have been in the same position more than five years and only 5 percent have been in the same spot for over a decade. To keep the pot stirred, the Administrator recently initiated the 2008 rotation program and we anticipate rotating another 5 to 10 percent of our managers again this year.

Does the fact this is the Year of the Rat bode well for this year’s rotation? I think so. According to Chinese custom, “Rat” folks make great leaders and pioneers. They are practical and hardworking -- passionate about what they do. “Rats” are the most highly organized and systematic people of all the Chinese zodiacs. They sound like my kind of peeps.

Comment Policy

Just a reminder, to avoid additional overtime costs we try and post comments received after business hours as soon as possible the next business day. That means comments posted over the weekend would likely go up on Monday.

What One Person Can Do

The greatest battle of the 19th Century was decided by a few soldiers. In June 1815, near the town of Waterloo in what is now Belgium, Napoleon’s Grande Armée attacked approximately 120,000 Prussian and Anglo-allied soldiers. The future of Europe hung in the balance.

Anchoring the allies’ right flank was a farmyard, called Hougoumont, surrounded by a high wall. At the start of the battle, and over the course of several hours, Napoleon launched successive attacks against this key position. At one point, a French lieutenant, wielding an axe, managed to open a gate and the French started to pour through. The fighting in the farmyard quickly became desperate. With extraordinary effort, several English guards fought through the advancing French and managed to close the gate. The Duke of Wellington later concluded, “The success of the battle of Waterloo depended on the closing of the gate.”

A few people can do big things. But what about one person?

I held a progress meeting regarding the Mexican Border last Monday. One problem we face is tire piles in Mexico. If they catch fire, these mini-mountains of scrap tires can pose a grave risk to air quality for people on both sides of the border. So EPA is assisting Mexican authorities in safely disposing of these tire piles.

One tire pile we’re trying to eliminate is at San Luis Rio Colorado in the Sonora desert. We expected to remove 80,000 tires from this pile in 2007 but three fourths of the way through the year progress was lagging. Then suddenly, by the end of the fourth quarter, we hit the target - all 80,000 targeted tires were taken away (see graph). What happened?

Emily Pimentel happened. Emily works out of EPA’s San Francisco office. She found out tire removals had slowed because the tire processing facility (a cement manufacturer) had reached its capacity.  Emily placed some strategic calls to our Mexican partners (including the vice president of the cement manufacturer and his facility managers), arranged for an alternative facility in Sonora to take additional tires, and set up an alternative means of transportation (see picture).

This pile isn’t gone yet, but with people like Emily, it will meet its Waterloo.

What can you do to make a difference today?

Guest Blog: Wiki Wiki Wiki!

Molly O’Neill is EPA’s cheeky Chief Information Officer.

Marcus asked me to do a guest blog, but secretly, I think Marcus wants my job! He is incredibly enthusiastic about how the Agency might use new Web 2.0 technologies to collaborate with our partners, as well as to implement and automate performance measures.

Being EPA’s Chief Information Officer, I get to build small “sandboxes” to learn. These are places where we can try out new technologies before we deploy them in production environments. But, sometimes you have to step outside the sandbox to learn more.

In November, we did just that with the Puget Sound Information Access Challenge. We wanted to use Web 2.0 technologies to engage a broad audience on an environmental issue, but we also wanted to show how these technologies can support networking and collaboration in government. Without notice, the Challenge was announced on stage at EPA’s Office of Environmental Information National Symposium. We challenged the audience and anyone watching over the Internet to help us pull together information for the Puget Sound Leadership Council. The Council’s goal is to draft and implement a plan for a healthy Puget Sound by 2020.

We followed up the announcement with an e-mail to all Symposium participants and encouraged them to forward the message to others who could help. We set up a wiki site (Web 2.0 collaboration tool) so that we could bring all this information together quickly over the Internet. Understanding that not everyone was tech savvy, we also set up an e-mail, Web form, and a temporary phone number. Over the 36 hour Challenge, we received 17,000 views to the wiki, and more than 175 contributions – ranging from information found in libraries to development of new environmental models.  Contributions were submitted by states, federal agencies, and citizens - including a discussion in a blog from Germany.

One of the many important lessons we learned from this Challenge is that Web 2.0 technologies pose incredible opportunity for collaborative work at EPA. Sorry Marcus, I won’t give up my job, but perhaps we can negotiate a new role for you as a WIKIMASTER!

On Taking Risks

Over the weekend I had a number of people approach me and mention they had seen this blog featured in last Friday’s Washington Post. Whether the coverage was flattering or not seems to be a matter of opinion, but a lot of them asked, “So, are you in trouble?”

No, I’m not.

The risks of blogging were well known when I started last July. We decided it was an acceptable price to pay for better communication and greater transparency in government.  Thankfully, other federal officials are coming to the same conclusion.  For instance, I welcomed the State Department to the fold when they started their blog last October. At the time they received a lot of flak. Now they receive approximately 55,000 page views a day and have a healthy public discussion going on in their comments section. This is all to the good.

I had coffee with a fellow employee recently. He said EPA staff face a problem of poor incentives. “You don’t get rewarded for taking risks, but you get punished for making mistakes.” I think that’s a problem throughout government. 

I take a risk every time I post to this blog and I appreciate the fact that the Administrator lets me continue to do that. But it’s an easy risk for me to take. I’m pretty senior and will be gone in a year. A good question is how do we encourage, rather than discourage, the rank and file in government to take risks and test innovative ideas?

Measuring Research

Approximately 90 million people will watch the Superbowl on Sunday. The New England Patriots will be playing for their fourth Championship in seven years. That’s amazing to some of us who remember the Patriots from the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were one of the worst teams in the League. Out of 142 games they played in ten years starting in 1967 they won less than a third (44). I still remember getting an ‘electronic football’ game as a gift during that time and being bitterly disappointed that one of the two teams I’d been randomly allotted was the Patriots. I quickly bought a replacement team.

Going from doormat to dynasty doesn’t happen by accident. I noted yesterday that EPA had achieved five-greens, the highest possible score, on our management scorecard. What I didn’t say is we started in 2001 with three reds and two yellows.

One of our persistent problems was coming up with good measures, particularly for our research programs. We simply could not find an acceptable way to measure the efficiency of our science programs.

Research is an inherently unpredictable endeavor with unpredictable consequences and outcomes. Albert Einstein once pointed out, “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?” Indeed, particularly with basic research, sometimes ‘failure’ is success. 3M’s slightly sticky ‘Post-It’ notes came out of a failed effort to come up with a super strong adhesive. Unfortunately, our failure to identify good efficiency measures for research was keeping us from getting high scores on the management scorecard.

Over two years ago we made a commitment to go from mediocre to first in measuring research. We spent a lot of time looking at what other agencies were doing and came up with the best efficiency measures we could. We then submitted those measures to an expert panel at the National Academies of Science and, along with the Office of Management and Budget, asked them, “What do you think? Is this the best we can do, that anyone can do, in measuring research?” They issued their report late yesterday.

There are four major recommendations in the report, but here is my favorite finding:

Among the metrics proposed [by EPA] to measure process efficiency, several can be recommended for wider use by agencies.

In my view, EPA has now become a leader. Many of our research efficiency measures are a model for others to use. It’s easy to measure success on the football field. EPA is now at the cutting edge of being able to measure it in the laboratory.

By the way, based on my research, Patriots 27, Giants 17.