Sherri Wasserman Goodman has the imposing task of improving the environmental conscience of one of the nation's largest polluters - the Department of Defense.
Already the new deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security is talking about reducing the Navy's plastic waste, speeding up the cleanup of closed military bases and protecting endangered species on the 25 million acres of federal land the Pentagon controls.She freely acknowledges that the department has not had a shining environmental record.
"The military does have a legacy of environmental contamination," she said last week. "There's no question that the military can do a better job of cleanup. We need to show we can achieve results."
There are signs the times are changing. Goodman has announced that the Pentagon is dropping its opposition to legislation that would create a vast protected wilderness area in the California desert, where the military has five major installations.
"Environmental security is vital to national security," she told a congressional committee.
The military often is accused of insensitivity to the environment and is criticized for not taking action until lawsuits are filed or political pressure applied.
One of Goodman's first efforts has been to mend fences with the Environmental Protection Agency, which frequently has crossed swords with the Pentagon.
That acrimony will be a thing of the past in the Clinton administration, Goodman promised.
"I've tried to forge a partnership with EPA," even giving a joint statement to Congress with an EPA official on base closings, she said. She also wants to set up a cooperative system to put a Pentagon environmental representative in each of EPA's 10 regional offices.
For Tad McCall, EPA's acting deputy administrator for federal facilities enforcement: "It's a refreshing change because they really see themselves as an integral part of accomplishing an administration's environmental objectives."
Goodman is a former environmental attorney in Boston who earlier worked for the majority staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
She heads a new Pentagon office of about 60 people, an expanded version of an earlier environmental division led by a lower-ranking official.
Goodman's early emphasis is on cleaning up about 1,800 past and present military sites where fuels, solvents and other contaminants have created a $25 billion hazardous waste problem.
The Defense Department far outstrips other government agencies in its number of hazardous waste sites, some of them on bases that are being closed and converted for civilian use.
Each base being closed will have a team to expedite cleanup and environmental impact statements, giving preference to the community's preferred use plan.
Opportunities for change also lie in preventing pollution, and Goodman said the military wants to change its design and construction practices to use fewer toxic materials.
Pollution prevention will be "an integral part of the way we do business," she said.