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Commissioner Lisa Jackson has spent her entire career in public service. In 2006, she was appointed by Governor Jon Corzine to lead New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) after twenty years of work protecting the environment. Her past experience includes management responsibilities at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regional office in New York for the Superfund program, the federal program regulating hazardous waste cleanup projects; for enforcement programs at both EPA and DEP; and for New Jersey’s Land Use Management Program. She is a professional engineer, having received her Masters Degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University.
During her tenure as Commissioner, Jackson has worked with Governor Corzine on policies that have put New Jersey in the forefront of states developing initiatives to combat global warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She presently serves as Vice President of the Executive Board of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a program organized by northeast states to develop a regional cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy producers. Working with the Governor and the leadership of the state’s Board of Public Utilities, she has also worked to revise the state’s Energy Master Plan to expand New Jersey’s leadership role in developing clean alternative energy sources within the state. During her tenure, New Jersey became one of the first states to legislatively mandate both short and long-term reductions in the emissions contributing to climate change.
Commissioner Jackson has also expanded New Jersey’s nationally recognized work to protect and sustain the state’s water resources. Under her leadership, the Category One program has significantly expanded protections for high quality surface waters that serve as sources of drinking water and as habitat for the state’s threatened and endangered species. She is also in the process of updating the state’s Water Supply Master Plan to ensure both the supply and infrastructure needed to support New Jersey’s economy and its people well into the future. She has led the restructuring of the state’s wastewater planning responsibilities to increase the program’s efficiency and effectiveness. She has also tightened standards for development in the state’s flood plains to protect water resources and future homeowners, reflecting a concern born of her first-hand knowledge of the devastating impact of flooding in her native New Orleans.
In addition to her responsibilities as Commissioner, Jackson has served on numerous boards, committees and commissions including the New Jersey Outdoor Women’s League, the New Jersey Sustainable State Institute, the Executive Committee of the Natural Resources Leadership Council of the States, the State Ethics Commission, the State Planning Commission, the regional Ozone Transport Commission, the Environmental Council of the States Compliance Committee and the Board of Advisors for the School of Science and Engineering at Tulane University, her undergraduate alma mater. In 2007 she was recognized by the New Jersey Conference of Mayors as Cabinet Member of the Year.
Commissioner Jackson is married to Kenny Jackson and is the proud mother of two wonderful sons, Marcus and Brian. The family lives in East Windsor, New Jersey.
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