{"id":18480,"date":"2012-09-21T16:41:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T21:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=18480"},"modified":"2012-09-22T13:15:15","modified_gmt":"2012-09-22T18:15:15","slug":"ron-curry-appointed-new-regional-administrator-for-epa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/09\/21\/ron-curry-appointed-new-regional-administrator-for-epa\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Curry Appointed New Regional Administrator for EPA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo courtesy of Only in New Mexico<\/p>

Ron Curry has been appointed as the new regional administrator of the EPA.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> (EPA) has appointed Ron Curry, a former New Mexico\u00a0Environment\u00a0Department official, as the new regional administrator of Region Six<\/a>\u00a0of the EPA. That area covers Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and New Mexico.<\/p>\n

In an email to StateImpact Texas, a spokesperson for Region Six of the EPA says that “will provide valuable insight into the public health and environmental challenges facing Region Six, and will be able to offer a state\u2019s perspective within the Agency.”<\/p>\n

Curry served as\u00a0Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department from January 2003 thru December 2010.<\/p>\n

Curry fills the spot vacated by Al Armendariz when he resigned in April<\/a> after some controversial remarks<\/a> were discovered. (Read our earlier interview with Armendariz<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tom “Smitty” Smith, the Texas director of Public Citizen, an\u00a0environmental\u00a0group, says that his group is happy with the decision. “Ron Curry is a great pick to take over EPA\u2019s top \u00a0job in region six,” Smith says in an email. “He was one of two people endorsed by the environmental community<\/a> back when Obama first took office and the EPA was looking for nominees. He is a smart, politically seasoned, tough and fair administrator who was liked by both business and the environmental community when he ran New Mexico\u2019s environmental agency.”<\/p>\n

Curry is the first New Mexican to lead the regional EPA office, according to New Mexico Democratic Senator Tom Udall. In a statement,<\/a> Udall says he “applauds” the decision and that Curry is a “pragmatic thinker.”<\/p>\n

Curry’s first day on the job will be Monday. Apparently he’s also a hot air balloon enthusiast<\/a>,\u00a0which could come in handy when negotiating the heavy rhetoric<\/a> surrounding his new job.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> Al Armendariz, the former regional chief that Curry is replacing, says in an interview at the Texas Tribune Festival<\/a> that he also applauds the selection.\u00a0“I do know Ron,” Armendariz says, according to the Tribune<\/a>. “Ron Curry is I think a fantastic selection by the [EPA] Administrator. … Ron is pragmatic, he’s very smart, he understands the need for conservation and the need for economic development.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has appointed Ron Curry, a former New Mexico\u00a0Environment\u00a0Department official, as the new regional administrator of Region Six\u00a0of the EPA. That area covers Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and New Mexico. In an email to StateImpact Texas, a spokesperson for Region Six of the EPA says that “will provide valuable insight into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":18483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[96,28,39],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18487,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480\/revisions\/18487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}