question offends me. >> because? >> because i don't have a friend at epa. what i've got is someone following the damn law for the first time. that's not a friend. and the issue was not a scientific issue. the issue was a due process issue. >> reporter: former epa melissa -- it is why she officially approved the protection. and like many at the epa is stunned it all could be so easily unden at the bidding of a mining company. >> this wasn't about epa taking an extraordinary proactive step on its own. it was really about using a tool to provide certainty to those alaskan native villages and all those people that rely on that resource for their jobs and