The announcement of Catherine Witherspoon’s immediate resignation form the state’s clean air agency comes less than a week after Schwarzenegger fired Robert Sawyer, the agency’s board chairman. Sawyer has since claimed that he was fired for pursing air emission standards beyond what the administration was willing to tackle.
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Both Sawyer and Witherspoon have cited interference from the governor’s office into agency work as reasons for their departure.
In her resignation letter to the agency board Monday, Witherspoon said, “The administration has lost its way on air quality and I no longer want to be part of it.”
Thanking the 11-member governor-appointed board for their support in recent days, Witherspoon added, “In return, I wish you great fortitude, good humor and wisdom. You’re going to need all of that and more to navigate the challenging obstacle course ahead.”
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Witherspoon put herself on immediate personal leave as of Monday and said she was “making the necessary arrangements to end my employment at ARB.”
She asked the board to be good to the agency staff and added that “Their morale has been badly shaken, and they were already working past the limits of reasonable human endurance. Only they have the experience and skill to realize your aspirations. They’ll perform miracles if you give them the necessary support to flourish.”
Later Monday, State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nu'ez called for an investigation into whether the Schwarzenegger administration wrongly interfered with CARB's work on new air emission standards.
The firing of Sawyer and the resignation of Witherspoon prompted Nu'ez to call an Assembly Natural Resources Committee hearing set for Friday. The two former CARB officials are expected to testify.
“The administration is interfering with CARB’s ability to implement the laws of California, and to say I’m troubled is an understatement,” Nu'ez, a Los Angeles Democrat, told the San Jose Mercury News. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. We want to know if CARB was being manipulated by the administration ' and to what extent those left in charge of the air resources board are committed to fully implementing AB32 to the letter of the law.”
Nu'ez co-authored the AB32 greenhouse gas legislation. Since its passage last year, the governor has traveled extensively in support of the bill, which will cap statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 using a 'cap-and-trade' system where emitters buy pollution credits from less polluting emitters.
