EPA names new regional administrator for Region 8

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced the election of James B. Martin to be the regional administrator for EPA’s Region 8. This region encompasses Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and 27 Tribal Nations.

Martin has worked in the environmental field for more than 20 years, most of them spent in Colorado. He most recently was the executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, managing and administering a department of more than 2,000 employees that oversee the state’s environmental protection policies.

He was also the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. There he managed an organization of 1,225 employees with a budget of $470 million, with responsibility over both state environmental and public health programs.

From 2005 to 2007, he managed a non-profit organization that focuses on energy, public lands, and water issues. In 2004, he headed the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado School of Law where he managed an interdisciplinary public policy think tank with a staff of lawyers, economists and scientists. He also taught advanced seminars on energy law and policy and land use planning.

Martin spent a decade as the senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund in Boulder, Colorado and Oakland, California. Earlier in his career, he was State Director for then United States Senator Tim Wirth.