Campbell's firing raises questions

As was widely reported in the media yesterday, Energy and Environment Cabinet Secretary Len Peters, with the blessing of Gov. Steve Beshear, fired cabinet employee Carl Campbell, without explanation. Campbell was a 25-year cabinet employee, most recently serving as commissioner of the Department for Natural Resources within the cabinet, with responsibilities for surface mine reclamation and mine safety programs.

KFTC members knew Campbell pretty well, in part because of his long service in the cabinet mostly dealing with coal mining. But also because he met regularly with KFTC members, both in Frankfort and in the coalfields where residents deal daily with the consequences of coal mining. The next meeting was scheduled in two weeks, in Hazard.

Sometimes KFTC members butted heads with Campbell, but also found him to be one of more honorable and accountable persons in the cabinet. We had a good working relationship with him. He took the time to get to know our members, and he produced answers to their questions and results when he could.

Campbell's performance raises questions about why he was the one dismissed and not others within the cabinet. Bruce Scott is the commissioner of the Department for Environmental Protection, which includes divisions of air, water and enforcement. KFTC members have gotten to know him better lately, as it was his agencies that failed to properly monitor and catch thousands of admitted violations of the Clean Water Act by several coal companies over the last five years. One might think that would be reason to dismiss an employee.

But it gets worse. Scott and Peters then went on to try to shelter the coal companies from legal action by KFTC and allies, secretly negotiated a settlement agreement that ignored a judge’s order to include third-party intervenors, and have spent considerable cabinet resources to challenge the interests of coalfield residents to be a party to enforcement actions (losing at every level, so far). They let their views be known when they called the intervention of regular Kentuckians in the public actions of the cabinet an "unwarranted burden.â€

It’s reasonable to expect that Steve Beshear may want some personnel changes in his second term. But it’s not a good sign that the cabinet employee open to meeting with coalfield residents on a regular basis and addressing their problems is the one now gone, and the ones who see the public as a nuisance and focus considerable resources defending polluters are still running the show.

Who Gov. Beshear and Len Peters name to replace Carl Campbell will be as telling as Campbell’s firing. There are names of some cabinet employees among the speculation whose appointment would represent the continued downward spiral of enforcement under the Beshear administration.

It should go without saying that the appointee should be committed to enforcing the law. Most cabinet employees are. But it’s disturbing that the two very public firings of cabinet officials (Ron Mills being the other, two years ago) were ones who seemed to have a strong sense of this duty.

A good replacement must be someone with an understanding of the role of environmental laws, and cabinet in enforcing those, to protect the health of all Kentuckians and safeguard our land, water and air. One must understand the cabinet as more than just a permitting agency, and know that including Kentuckians in the monitoring and enforcement of the law is a necessary part of doing a good job.