Lisa Perez Jackson[1] (born February 8, 1962) is an American chemical engineer who served as the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2009 to 2013.

On December 15, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama nominated Jackson to serve as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 23, 2009, and took office that same day.

[3][failed verification] [4] Due to her exceptional performance in mathematics, she received a scholarship from the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering & Science, which allowed her to gain early exposure to a college environment.

As a child, Jackson did not feel any particular affinity for the outdoors, but she became interested in environmental matters following the national and international coverage of the Love Canal Disaster.

[5] Prior to the EPA, she spent a year and a half working at Clean Sites, a nonprofit advocating for accelerated cleanup of contaminated areas.

[3] After 16 years with EPA, Jackson joined the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in March 2002 as assistant commissioner of compliance and enforcement.

As the state's chief environmental enforcer, Jackson led compliance sweeps in Camden and Paterson, two largely working-class cities in which people of color formed the majority of the population and where the effects of pollution on public health had long been neglected.

[16] By the EPA's own statements, Administrator Jackson has pledged to focus on core issues of protecting air and water quality, preventing exposure to toxic contamination in U.S. communities, and reducing greenhouse gases.

By the same statements, she has made it a priority to focus on vulnerable groups – including children, the elderly, and low-income communities – that are particularly susceptible to environmental and health threats.

[20] Jackson authorized and defended BP's choice to use the dispersant Corexit to combat the 210 million gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico.

[31] After recommending the plan to President Obama, he conclusively rejected the proposal saying that "Ultimately, I did not support asking state and local governments to begin implementing a new standard that will soon be reconsidered.

[33][34] Jackson later announced that she would stay with the EPA, "respected President Obama's decision" and that her Agency would "aggressively implement" the curtailed version of the ozone standards.

[35] Media outlets and industry figures often refer to Jackson's testimony during a May 2011 Senate Hearing Committee that she is not aware of any cases where hydraulic fracturing itself has contaminated water.

"[42] Jackson spoke out against the Senate Joint Resolution 26 (the Murkowski Amendment), which would take away the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, which was expanded by the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.

[43] In an op-ed in the Huffington Post on the Murkowski Amendment, Jackson said that "now is not the time to take a big step backward, by doubling down on the kinds of energy and environmental policies that keep America addicted to oil.

"[51] On December 13, 2012, the assistant inspector general notified the EPA they would be conducting an audit into recordkeeping practices associated with the use of private email accounts by Lisa Jackson under the name of "Richard Windsor."

The Justice Department has agreed to release 12,000 emails at a rate of 3000 per week from this account beginning January 14, 2013, in response to a lawsuit brought by a Washington attorney.

[55][56][57] According to the New York Post, Jackson submitted her resignation because she believed that the Obama administration would move to support the Keystone pipeline and she did not want this to occur on her watch.