Marianne Horinko has the task of making sure thousands of things get done.

WASHINGTON (AP) – As the third woman in as many weeks to occupy the administrator’s office at the Environmental Protection Agency, Marianne L. Horinko is well aware of her temporary status as she follows the White House’s marching orders.

Horinko, EPA’s new acting administrator, said Tuesday she will try to keep the agency on an even keel and make no major changes as President Bush searches for a long-term successor to Christie Whitman.

“Keep on track,” she says Bush’s aides instructed her. “What I’ve heard is, “There’s a good team here; you guys are doing a great job.’ The key thing now is to make sure all the thousands of things the agency does every day get done – you know, issuing permits, taking enforcement actions, writing rules, getting guidance out. There are 18,000 people who come in each day and sort of advance the ball.”

Bush appointed Horinko as the agency’s interim administrator last Thursday, temporarily filling the vacancy left by Whitman’s June 27 departure.

“I’ve only been here one day!” she repeatedly answered Tuesday, always with a laugh, in an Associated Press interview on her second day on the job. “Give me some time to map out a course.”

Horinko was in charge of EPA’s contribution to the cleanup at the World Trade Center site and the Pentagon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and directed EPA’s three-month anthrax decontamination of Capitol Hill offices. She also oversaw the agency’s recovery operation after the Columbia space shuttle disaster last February.

Bush named Stephen Johnson to serve as acting deputy administrator, replacing Linda Fisher, who left the agency last Friday. Johnson has been EPA’s assistant administrator in charge of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances.

Fisher was EPA acting administrator for the two weeks following Whitman’s resignation after 21/2 years on the job.

Horinko, a lawyer who also studied chemistry, last weekend took home as light reading a 2-inch-thick binder of tabbed notes on running the agency, prepared by senior EPA staff.

She entered the Bush administration in October 2001 as EPA’s assistant administrator in charge of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, overseeing the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program.

On her watch, the Superfund program completed fewer cleanups per year, which Horinko attributes to the growing size and complexity of cleanup sites. She said the agency also found money for more projects than had been anticipated.

Democrats and environmentalists have been highly skeptical of EPA’s numbers and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., accused Horinko of stonewalling Congress on its requests for more information about Superfund and other programs.

Horinko realizes she is stepping onto a political landscape filled with land mines.

“It’s daunting because EPA has always been and will always be at the center of some controversies for various decisions that we make every day,” she said.

After graduating from the University of Maryland in 1982 with a degree in analytical chemistry and getting a law degree from Georgetown University four years later, Horinko joined a Washington law firm. She specialized in pesticides, hazardous waste and water quality cases, then focused on the Superfund program. She’s married and has two children ages 4 and 5.

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On the Net:

EPA: http://www.epa.gov

AP-ES-07-15-03 1416EDT