Retired senator to head Department of Natural Resources

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Gov. Matt Blunt on Tuesday named recently retired Sen. Doyle Childers to head the Department of Natural Resources, directing him to make the agency friendlier to businesses.

Childers, 60, of Reeds Springs, served in the legislature for 22 years before term limits prevented him from seeking re-election last fall. He is the fourth former Republican lawmaker to get a spot in Blunt's administration.

The Department of Natural Resources, which handles environmental regulations and manages state parks, has been an early target of change for Blunt, who fired numerous upper-level administrators at the agency when he took office.

Blunt expressed frustration with how long it takes the department to decide whether to issue environmental permits to businesses seeking to build or expand. A quicker response would solve the department's primary problem, Blunt said Tuesday.

"Within the department, we need to have a better balance between protecting our natural resources and doing things that spur economic growth," Blunt said. In recent years, that balance has "tipped away from job creation."

Blunt said Childers could help strike that balance. In the Senate, he was one of the chamber's more moderate Republicans. For example, he supported tax increases backed by former Democratic Gov. Bob Holden when the majority of Republicans opposed them.

Environmental and business groups both praised Childers.

State Sierra Club director Carla Klein called him "fair and accessible."

Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Dan Mehan called Childers a "straight-shooter."

"In his career as a legislator, he was known as somebody who tried to take into account different sides of the issues and forge consensus and come out with a viable solution," Mehan said.

Before winning election to the House in 1982, Childers spent 10 years as a high school science teacher in his hometown. Before finishing his college education, he served in the Peace Corps in Central America. He grew up on a farm in southwest Missouri.

Childers said his ability to forge consensus -- rather than any technical expertise -- is what most qualifies him to direct the department. He cited clean air and water issues as among the agency's biggest challenges.

Under a federal consent decree, Missouri has until April 2006 to revise its water quality standards so that all streams and lakes are protected for swimming. The agreement reached last month resolved a lawsuit filed by the St. Louis-based Missouri Coalition for the Environment claiming that the federal Environmental Protection Agency failed to push hard enough for the state to comply with the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The EPA reported last month that the St. Louis area did not meet new federal air pollution standards for microscopic soot that can cause heart and lung problems. The St. Louis area already is subject to vehicle emission tests because it has not been in compliance with air quality standards for ozone.