About EPA
Mathy Stanislaus, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Mathy Stanislaus
- Schedule
- Phone: (202) 566-0200
- Email: aastanislaus@epa.gov
- About the Office of Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Mathy Stanislaus was nominated by President Barack Obama for the position of Assistant Administrator in EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) on March 31, 2009 and began in his position June 8, 2009 after confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
As Assistant Administrator for OSWER, Mr. Stanislaus leads the Agency's land cleanup, solid waste and emergency response programs.
Specifically, Mr. Stanislaus is responsible for EPA's programs on hazardous and solid waste management under Resources Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), contaminated site cleanup under RCRA corrective action, Superfund and federal facilities cleanup and redevelopment, Brownfields, oil spill prevention and response, chemical accident prevention and preparedness, underground storage tanks, and emergency response.
As Assistant Administrator for OSWER, Mr. Stanislaus has focused on opening government, expanding transparency, and empowering local communities to participate in all of OSWER's decisions through the Community Engagement Initiative. He has expanded the brownfields program to provide tools to local communities to revitalize economically distressed communities in America's downtown including through the innovative Area Wide Brownfields Pilot program. He leads the Agency's efforts to support community based actions to address environmental justice under Plan EJ 2014. He is leading the effort to transition from waste management to life-cycle based materials management through the Sustainable Materials Management Initiative. He led EPA's response efforts during BP Spill – serving weeks in Unified Area Command. He serves on the White House Council on Auto Communities and Workers and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Mr. Stanislaus is a chemical engineer and environmental lawyer with over 20 years of experience in the environmental field in the private and public sectors. He served as senior environmental counsel at a law firm, and director of environmental compliance for an environmental consulting firm. He started and operated a small business providing consulting services to local governments and local communities on projects ranging from the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated properties, the proposed siting and expansion of power plants, solid waste facilities and large highways. He has worked in the not-for-profit sector, co-founding and co-directing New Partners for Community Revitalization, a NY not-for-profit organization whose mission is to advance the renewal of New York's low and moderate income neighborhoods and communities of color through the redevelopment of Brownfields sites. He is also former counsel for EPA's Region 2 Office.
Mr. Stanislaus has also been an advisor to other federal government agencies, including Congress and the United Nations on a variety of environmental issues. He chaired an EPA workgroup in 1997 that investigated the clustering of waste transfer stations in low income and communities of color throughout the United States. He has served on the board of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. In June 1994, as a member of United Nations Environment Programme - Environmental Advisory Council, he served as counsel to the United Nations' summit that examined environmental issues affecting New York's indigenous communities of the Haudaunosaunee Confederacy, as part of United Nations' International Year of the Indigenous Communities.
He received his law degree from Chicago Kent Law School and Chemical Engineering Degree from City College of New York. He was born in Sri Lanka and his family immigrated to this country to seek freedom and opportunity.