Could Ian Bowles be headed to Washington?

By Matt Viser, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick’s top environmental chief is among the names of candidates to become the head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, a key post in the administration of president-elect Barack Obama.

Ian Bowles, secretary for energy and environmental affairs, has been a point person for passing legislation this year on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, setting renewable energy goals, and pushing wind power.

"I love my job. I'm not looking for a new job," Bowles said today in an interview. But, he added, "There's a lot of things in life I wouldn't rule out, including trying out for the Red Sox next year."

He said he has not been contacted by the Obama camp, and seemed baffled that his name has become a mentioned nationally.

"It's the season," said Bowles, who offered a five-point environmental agenda for the new president on The Green Blog yesterday.

Bowles' name emerged in national press reports speculating about possible Obama cabinet picks.

Other candidates for the EPA post are Kathleen McGinty, former head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board; Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius; and New Jersey environmental commissioner Lisa P. Jackson, according to national press reports.

The name that is creating the most buzz, however, is environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, did not return calls for comment.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Patrick was adamant that he would not take a position in the Obama administration, but said some of his own staffers may be plucked.

"There are a number of very, very talented people in this administration who have been, or I expect will be, approached," Patrick said, without naming names. "And I am going to do what I can consistent with my primary interest in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to share that talent with the new administration."

JudyAnn Bigby, the governor's secretary of Health and Human Services, has also been mentioned as a possible appointee as New England regional director of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Bigby was traveling today and was unreachable for comment.

Before joining the Patrick's administration, Bowles was president and chief executive of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, a centrist think tank in Boston. Bowles, who grew up in Woods Hole, graduated from Harvard and Oxford and then went to work in Washington for Claudine Schneider, a Republican congresswoman from Rhode Island.

He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1996, losing in the Democratic primary to US Representative William Delahunt.

From 1999 to 2001, he worked in the Clinton administration as associate director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and as environmental aide to the National Security Council. In 2001, he co-wrote a book on conservation, "Footprints in the Jungle."