The bears bagged Brad Campbell in the end.
Despite his efforts to keep his job, Campbell, New Jersey's ubiquitous environmental protection commissioner, will end four tumultuous years in Trenton on Tuesday.
It was Campbell's support for last year's bear hunt that sealed his fate, according to those familiar with incoming Gov. Jon Corzine's transition. The last |thing Corzine wanted, sources say, was a bear hunt controversy during his election campaign. And yet Campbell became not just an organizer of the hunt, but a full-throated, ready-for-the-camera champion.
It was one of the last chapters in a tenure full of milestones and high-wire acts for Campbell, whose time in office showed how large personality and politics can loom in a job where science and law are supposed to prevail. "Brad Campbell is a wonderful person who wants to do right for the environment," said Jim Sinclair, an influential business lobbyist who retired last year. "If that was all, then we would make Brad a saint. But Brad is also very politically ambitious, very personally ambitious. And he made mistakes."
Campbell, a 44-year-old Philadelphia native who says he wants to stay active in state affairs, invites superlatives. Lobbyists and activists alike call him brilliant, a tireless worker - perhaps the most successful leader in the Department of Environmental Protection's 35-year history. But observers also call him too political, a self-promoter.
He leaves with a long list of achievements: the passage of the Highlands Act to preserve 800,000 acres of open space in Northwest New Jersey; tough protections for water supplies and streams; the nation's toughest standards on mercury in the air and arsenic in the water; the country's first rules covering global-warming emissions. "It has been four years of tremendous activity," said George Hawkins, executive director of the anti-sprawl group New Jersey Future. "Some of the rules he pushed through were some of the most far-reaching in the country. That's what will be his legacy."
But Campbell also had a knack for making enemies on all sides: the developers that hated the Highlands restrictions, the towns that hated new stormwater rules and the environmentalists, who loved him and then loathed him for allegedly caving in to builders. "With him, it was a lot of press conferences and a lot of politics," fumed Bill Wolfe, a former Campbell adviser who left the DEP to form a whistle-blower group for state environmental workers.
Critics said Campbell shifted with the political winds. Campbell says he simply listened to all sides and called each case as he saw it. "I think that's part of the democratic process," he said. "In areas where the law is clear and the science is clear, we've made clear that we're going to decide on the basis of the science and the facts, even where politically that was unpopular. "I think we succeeded in restoring New Jersey's position as a national leader in environmental protection," he added.
Nonetheless, Campbell, who lobbied hard to keep his job, is out. His office was already being repainted last week to make way for his successor, assistant commissioner Lisa Jackson. To call someone a controversial DEP commissioner is a redundancy. The job entails tackling one hot-button issue after another, balancing the fears of the public, the passions of activists and the influence of business.
"You don't make friends in the job," Sinclair said. But Campbell also didn't shy away from the spotlight. When reporters called with even minor questions, he was the designated spokesman. Asked last week for a list of his accomplishments, Campbell replied, "I can send you a list." And he did - 17 pages' worth. To many environmentalists, Campbell seemed almost uniquely qualified when he arrived in 2002. A former Justice Department lawyer, environmental adviser to the Clinton White House and regional administrator with the EPA, he rode in with Jim McGreevey, who had adopted the agenda of green groups almost wholesale in the 2001 campaign.
Campbell took over a department that had been slashed in the 1990s by former Governor Christie Whitman's business-friendly policies. He promised to be tough on polluters. "Early on, the morale and vigor at the DEP was restored," said David Pringle, a lobbyist with the New Jersey Environmental Federation. But Campbell may have set expectations too high, said NJ Future's Hawkins. While Campbell achieved much, he failed to deliver on some promises. Campbell's high point likely came on June 10, 2004, when the state Legislature approved the Highlands Act, a goal conservationists had sought for decades.
The low point may have come a week later, when legislators rammed through a bill to speed up the permitting process for developers. Activists were enraged, arguing that the so-called "fasttrack" bulldozed loopholes through environmental laws. Campbell was in Paris at the time on his honeymoon, but rumors spread that he had threatened to resign. He later denied the stories and wrote a column for The Record saying he supported fasttrack, albeit with serious reservations.
For many environmentalists, it was the ultimate betrayal. They say Campbell's cave-in to business continued when he rejected calls to preserve Petty's Island in the Delaware River. It didn't help that George Norcross, a South Jersey powerbroker and poster boy for Democrats' ethics problems, was revealed to have lobbied the DEP on behalf of the developers. Or when John Lynch, another controversial Democratic boss, mused that Campbell could make a good congressional candidate someday. (Campbell said he has no plans to run.) The criticism had a jilted-lover feel at times. Green groups seemed even more incensed that someone as promising as Campbell would side with the forces of commerce.
"He has done a lot to inflame the environmental community and a lot of these people are Corzine confidants," said one New Jersey activist who advised Corzine on the DEP choice. "No one really stood up and said, 'Yeah, Brad's our guy. In an interview last week, Campbell said he had achieved most of what he set out to accomplish. Some of the most controversial decisions had been out of his hands, he added. He said he wanted to preserve Petty's Island, but was overruled by McGreevey. He protested after he was "deliberately excluded" from talks over the fast-track bill, he said, but ultimately decided he could do more to fix the law by staying in office. Bowing to complaints, state officials have yet to implement the measure.
As for the bear hunt, he had no comment on whether it affected Corzine's choice. In any event, he had a duty to make the case to the public, he said. "I think I have an obligation as long as I hold this job to clearly articulate what the issues are so the public can make informed judgments about them," he said. Campbell said he plans to remain "both vocal and visible" on environmental issues. He said he's "exploring the private and nongovernmental sector," though he wouldn't be more specific. For now, he wants to relax. Campbell's a sailor, with a 35-foot sloop, Terroir. But the boat's out of the water for the winter. "It's unfortunate that transitions take place in the cold," he said.
We can't even have a fair lefty in our office.
'March to the beat of the drum and no thoughts for you!'