Lisa Jackson has long been a favorite target of House Republicans. Ex-EPA chief returns to hot seat

Seven months after resigning as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson is stepping back into the lion’s den.

She’s scheduled to testify Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is holding a hearing on the same criticisms about executive branch secrecy that the panel’s Republicans repeatedly lobbed at EPA during her tenure at the agency.


The hearing on Preventing Violations of Federal Transparency Laws will also feature former Energy Department loan office director Jonathan Silver, who took frequent hits from the GOP during the committee’s investigation of the failed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.

But the main attraction most likely will be Jackson, who has long been a favorite target of House Republicans. During her four-year term, she spent hours answering pointed questions from GOP lawmakers who accused her of declaring war on the coal industry, killing thousands of jobs and damaging the economy. She appeared before Congress so many times that one Republican joked that she should have her own parking space.

( WATCH: Lisa Jackson at POLITICO's Energy Breakfast)

Now Jackson, who became Apple’s top environmental official in May, is coming back for more.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has been pursuing a months-long inquiry into Jackson’s email practices as administrator, including her use of a secondary EPA email address under the name Richard Windsor. (EPA officials have said the name was based on that of a family dog when Jackson lived in East Windsor Township, N.J.)

News of Jackson’s secondary email account — as well as reports that a former regional EPA official had used a personal email address for public business — has formed the basis for GOP allegations that agency officials tried to bypass the Freedom of Information Act by using unpublicized or private email accounts.

POLITICO reported last month that Jackson has retained the services of attorney Barry Coburn at Coburn & Greenbaum to aid her in the inquiry.

“Lisa Jackson has been a dedicated public servant who served her country honorably for over two decades,” Coburn said in a statement at the time. “She has engaged in no wrongdoing of any kind. She is committed to responding appropriately to any inquiry initiated by any forum. We have offered to assist her in doing so.”

In an email to POLITICO on Thursday, Coburn confirmed that Jackson will testify at the hearing. “She looks forward to offering her testimony and addressing any questions that the committee wishes to put to her,” he said.

Another scheduled witness is Silver, who came under fire following the bankruptcy of Solyndra, which had received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration.

Silver, who left the Energy Department in 2011 and wasn’t involved in approving the Solyndra loan guarantee, has similarly taken heat from Republicans for occasionally using a private email address while at DOE.

During a July 2012 hearing, Silver said he used his private email address when he was traveling or working outside the office because the technology on his government-issued BlackBerry “is so cumbersome that it’s virtually impossible to work with documents and long-form pieces.” He stressed that he had no intention of concealing information.

Other officials scheduled to testify at the hearing include Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, former White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin and David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States at the National Archives.