Air & Waste Management Association Recognizes Robert D. Brenner with Environmental Stewardship Award

Pittsburgh, PA (July 10, 2006) - The Air & Waste Management Association (A&WMA) is pleased to announce that Robert D. Brenner is the 2006 recipient of the Association's Richard Beatty Mellon Environmental Stewardship Award. Brenner is Director of the Office of Policy Analysis and Review at the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Brenner played a key role in the development, Congressional passage and implementation of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 - the most significant and far-reaching environmental legislation passed in the last 25 years.

In addition to his ongoing role as policy office director, Brenner served for several years as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, EPA's senior career executive in air pollution control. In 2003, he received the federal government's highest management accolade - the Distinguished Executive Award - for "sustained extraordinary accomplishment" from President George W. Bush. He has also been cited twice as Meritorious Executive, once by President George H.W. Bush (in 1993) and once by President William J. Clinton (in 1998).

Brenner's most exceptional and enduring achievement is his central role in the development, Congressional passage, and implementation of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. This legislation was the first to use market forces to induce superior environmental performance, an innovation that has since been widely studied around the world as a model for market-based regulatory reform. Because of this landmark law, American industry has produced dramatically cleaner cars, fuels, power plants and factories, improving the health and welfare of all Americans and their natural environment.

Since passage of the Amendments, Brenner has focused on innovative, cost-effective ways to implement its provisions, particularly through the use of collaboration and market-based approaches such as emissions trading. He has been a leader in EPA's efforts to promote development of new, more effective pollution-control technologies, and has pioneered the use of economic analysis in evaluating the effectiveness of EPA programs. The results have been striking: millions of tons of harmful pollutants are being removed annually from the nation's air, saving tens of thousands of lives each year and avoiding hundreds of thousands of cases of respiratory disease. Much of the credit for this progress is due to Brenner's skill at developing and managing a superior team of scientists, economists, and policy analysts who are able to work effectively with the White House, Congress, state and local governments, environmentalists, and affected industries to assure that federal policies are well-designed, well-implemented, and well-managed; his efforts have been a principal reason why air-pollution control is often cited as one of the most effective and efficient of all federal regulatory programs.

To complement his regulatory work, Brenner has also been a pioneer in using voluntary programs to address problems less suitable to regulatory solutions. He has often used pilot projects to test new ideas before they are applied broadly, and then moved successful approaches into broader, mainstream applications. In recent years, two examples of this approach are EPA's programs to clean up existing diesel engines and to help communities address local toxic-pollution problems. In the diesel area, Brenner worked with both the diesel industry and environmental groups to launch the school bus diesel retrofit program, which has since grown into a broad-based initiative to retrofit or replace millions of older, dirtier diesel engines in many types of vehicles around the country. To help communities address toxics problems, he initiated a pilot program of grants and technical assistance to help the Cleveland community assess the multimedia pollution risks they face and develop their own approaches to reducing those risks. This modest program has now become EPA's Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) program, currently active in 12 communities and expected to expand to over 40 communities within the next two years.

Before coming to EPA in 1979, Brenner worked at Princeton University's Center for International Studies, focusing on energy policy. He holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Administration degrees in Economics and Public Policy from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

About the Award

Richard Beatty Mellon (1858-1933), with his brother Andrew William Mellon, established the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research in 1913. Mellon showed great interest in the abatement of urban smoke and air pollution and supported the first modern investigations into controlling atmospheric pollution. The Richard Beatty Mellon Environmental Stewardship Award honors an individual whose civic contributions - whether administrative, legislative, or judicial - have substantially aided in the mission and objectives of the Association.

About A&WMA

The Air & Waste Management Association (A&WMA) is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan professional organization that provides training, information, and networking opportunities to thousands of environmental professionals in 65 countries.