WASHINGTON — The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pushing back in response to what the Agency described as a sexist attack in The Hill on Henry Darwin’s wife, Veronica.
Late Friday, The Hill published the article, Controversial husband and wife EPA duo to leave Washington, which the Agency claims misrepresented the EPA employees’ time at the Agency.
The Hill article centered around an announcement that the Darwins are returning to Arizona. The author implied that Veronica Darwin was not a “legitimate environmental professional.”
The Agency quickly defended Ms. Darwin noting in an email to The Hill that she “has spent more than 18 years working extensively on environmental waste issues that included roles as a compliance officer at EPA’s Region 9 office (7 years), working in the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (total of 8 years) and as a physical scientist and regulatory specialist for Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. (3 years).”
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It was Henry, not Veronica, who earned a spotty reputation while working for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) and later as Governor Doug Ducey’s Chief Operations Officer.
The Agency issued the following statement:
In this piece, The Hill chose to defame two EPA staffers as “controversial” for the apparent crime of working for the Trump Administration,” the Agency stated in a press release. “At no point in the article did The Hill back up their headline and explain the supposed “controversy” that warranted this description.
In the article the author chooses to level a sexist attack against Veronica Darwin by referring to her only in relation to her husband, rather than highlighting her 18 years of environmental cleanup experience. Hoping to dupe readers into thinking she has not earned a position at the Agency, it should be noted this is her second time at EPA as she previously served as a career staffer for Region 9 for 7 years. After the Agency referenced her previous environmental experience (which was mentioned in an article cited by the author) in an email, The Hill chose to update their story by categorizing her environmental stewardship disparagingly as “life experience.” After further discussion they changed it again to “professional experience.”
The reporter also chose to ignore the comment from the Agency that answered her question within 5 minutes. Instead she stated that the EPA did not respond.
Henry Darwin, a former head of Arizona DEQ, will assume the position of EPA’s Assistant Deputy Administrator where he will continue to implement EPA’s Lean Management System and will travel extensively to EPA’s regional offices as he has been doing. Veronica Darwin will return to working in state government in Arizona, this is after her considerable and successful work implementing the Superfund Task Force’s recommendations and working on the Administrator’s priorities dealing with children’s health and developing EPA’s action plan on lead. This is not controversial work.
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