Ruth Van Mark is the minority staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
At a Glance
Career History: 1982-1988, legislative staff for Rep. Daniel Lungren, R-CA.
1989-1991, legislative director, Rep. James M. Inhofe, R-OK.
1991-1994 staff member, House Committee on Public Works and Transportation.
1994-2000, legislative dir. Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-OK.
2001-2002, staff member, Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure., Senate Committee on environment and public works.
2003-Present, Staff Director, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Hometown: Torrington, Wyo.
Alma Mater: George Mason University, M. A., 1988; Bethel College, B.A., political science, St. Paul, Minn. 1982
Committees: Senate Environment and Public Works
DC Office: 456 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510
Why She Matters:
As the Republican staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Van Mark heads a staff armed with answers for senators’ environment questions.
“Our primary function here at the committee is to represent our members’ interests,” Van Mark said, “and provide counsel and advice and whatever else they need in preparing for committee hearings or committee legislative actions.”
The EPW committee has an oversight role over many agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
Van Mark rose to minority staff director during her more than two decades working for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking minority member on the EPW committee and a dedicated climate change skeptic. During those years, she became an expert on infrastructure and transportation issues.
That knowledge comes in handy since some of the committee’s biggest legislation has included the Water Resources Development Act, the law that authorized water-resource projects for the Army Corps of Engineers, and the highway bill that appropriates money for transportation.
Path To Power
Van Mark was born and raised in Torrington, Wyo., with dreams of being the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice.
“Obviously, I missed that,” she said. “ But I always thought somehow working in government would be something I would enjoy, and it certainly has been because I’ve been doing it since I graduated from college in 1982.”
Van Mark steered away from her Supreme Court aspirations and toward Capitol Hill after an internship with the House Republican Study Committee. Her first job was on Rep. Dan Lungren’s (R-CA) staff during his first stint on the Hill.
“I stayed with him until 1989 when he left Congress,” Van Mark said, “and I got a job at the Farmers Home Administration.”
But Van Mark enjoyed congressional work more, so she jumped at the opportunity to return to the Hill as a staffer in then-Rep. Inhofe’s office.
Now, Van Mark works doing two of her favorite things— guiding the fresh-out-of college members of her staff, while staying a student herself.
“I enjoy learning,” she said, “and certainly that’s something that I get to do every day because there are so many aspects of working on Capitol Hill that you just have to keep on top of since things change so quickly. So I do a lot of reading and visiting with people who know more things than I do about topics.”
The Issues
Van Mark has been working specifically with transportation and infrastructure since she began working for Senator Inhofe in 1989.
“On certain issues I am certainly the first person he (Senator Inhofe) goes to to ask questions, on infrastructure issues and transportation,” she said.
Van Mark as worked, for example, on the highway bill that allotted funding for work on the nation’s roadways. This legislation has been controversial because of a sense that it contained a lot of earmarks and pet projects. In this way, infrastructure projects cam sometimes seem to fiscal conservatives like a boondoggle, a project that could make an elected official more popular but lack real value to the community.
Van Mark said this view obstructs the real importance of infrastructure.
“You really couldn’t have an economy that is free and producing as ours is,” Van Mark said, “without a basic infrastructure. Government is really the only one entity that can provide that. So over the years I’ve come to realize that if you are interested in service, in government, infrastructure is one of those basic core activities that, at the local and or federal level, is an important part of public service.”
In Her Own Words
Van Mark said sometimes the worst part of her job is negotiation and compromise.“Sometimes we all come up here with some preconceived notions of how things should go,” she said. “Sometimes it’s difficult to sit those aside and work out a compromise where you can move things forward.”