WASHINGTON — Lisa Jackson said Thursday she will step down as head of the Environmental Protection Agency after four years during which she oversaw the first efforts to curb carbondioxide emissions to combat global-warming risks.
“I will leave the EPA confident the ship is sailing in the right direction,” Jackson, 50, said in a statement from the agency. Her plan is to depart after the president’s State of the Union address next month.
Under Jackson the EPA negotiated stricter fuel-efficiency standards with automakers and proposed the first-ever rules for mercury pollution and carbon emissions at power plants, often triggering protests from industry and Republicans in Congress. Jackson, the first black person to head the agency, also pushed to ensure that poor and minority groups don’t bear the brunt of environmental risks.
“Over the last four years, Lisa Jackson has shown an unwavering commitment to the health of our families and our children,” President Barack Obama said in a statement.
“Under her leadership, the EPA has taken sensible and important steps to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink.”
Possible successors include Bob Perciasepe, the agency’s No. 2 off icial; Heather Zichal, the top White House aide for energy and environment; Gina McCarthy, the EPA assistant administrator for air pollution; and Dan Esty, the top environmental regulator in Connecticut and a former Yale University professor, environmental advocates said.
Obama, re-elected last month, is seeking replacements for agency and department heads who have indicated they won’t serve in a second term, such as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Obama last week nominated Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said she plans to leave the post of secretary of state.
Health and environmental groups have praised Jackson for taking up rules that were delayed or weakened under the previous administration, while Republicans in Congress complained that the EPA’s efforts were choking off the still-struggling U.S. economy.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., when he took over as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last year said that Jackson would need her own parking space on Capitol Hill because he planned to call her so often to testify on the EPA’s regulations.
House Republicans unsuccessfully sought to overturn by legislation the greenhouse-gas curbs. As head of the EPA, Jackson often bore the brunt of Republican complaints about regulatory overreach from Washington.
Even critics said Jackson, who grew up in a section of New Orleans all but destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University, is an effective communicator. Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has called climate change a hoax, has nevertheless spoken warmly about Jackson, one of the administration’s main cheerleaders for action to deal with risks associated with rising global temperatures.
Jackson kept a framed holiday card from Inhofe on her EPA office shelf.
Frank O’Donnell, president of Washington-based Clean Air Watch, called Jackson a “champion” for clean air and said Perciasepe is her “most likely” successor.
He credited Jackson for backing new restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions and for “strong standards” over mercury and other emissions from coal power plants.
Jackson had setbacks, such as the 2011 White House decision to block the EPA from updating smog standards, O’Donnell said in an e-mail Thursday.
The administration’s effort to pass broad climate-change legislation also failed under opposition from Republicans and industrial-state Democrats in the Senate, leaving the EPA to shoulder responsibility for greenhouse gas curbs on its own.
Scott Segal, a utility lobbyist and director for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a Washington-based industry group, said Jackson’s EPA presided over some of the most expensive and controversial rules in its history.
“Agency rules have been used as blunt attempts to marginalize coal and other solid fossil fuels and to make motor fuels more costly at the expense of industrial jobs, energy security, and economic recovery,” Segal said in an e-mail. He credited Jackson for her “likable personality” and her “skilled use of political leverage.”
Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York, said Jackson is a fierce proponent for public health and the environment.
“Every American is better off today than when she took office nearly four years ago,” Beinecke said in a statement. “Lisa leaves giant shoes to fill.”
Information for this article was contributed by Kim Chipman of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 12/28/2012