When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed me to serve as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency in 2003, my first challenge came not from the smoggy skies of Los Angeles or the pesticide-laden drainage from irrigated fields near Fresno, but from a small town in Missouri. Well, actually it came from the tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions made to Missouri Senator Christopher "Kit" Bond by Briggs & Stratton in exchange for the lives of about 1200 Americans.