
Then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015. They will respectively serve as top advisors on domestic and international climate policy in the Biden administration.
(Image credit – State Department)
Then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015. They will respectively serve as top advisors on domestic and international climate policy in the Biden administration.
(Image credit – State Department)
With one week remaining until his inauguration, President-elect Biden has already selected senior members of his administration who will shape its strategy for addressing climate change. Adding to his early announcement
Together, this group is expected to immediately begin reversing Trump administration actions that unwound climate-related policies, regulations, and international agreements spearheaded by the Obama administration. However, members of Biden’s transition team have warned
Meanwhile, Trump appointees are racing to leave additional roadblocks to prevent the Biden administration from reversing its climate and environment policies, including a just-announced
To serve as national climate advisor, Biden has chosen
For the past year, McCarthy has been president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, which she joined after spending most of the Trump administration at Harvard University following her four years leading Obama’s EPA. At the agency, McCarthy oversaw implementation of the 2015 Clean Power Plan
In an interview
Speaking about her new role last month, McCarthy said
McCarthy’s deputy will be Ali Zaidi, who was associate director for natural resources, energy, and science in the White House Office of Management and Budget under Obama, and is currently a top energy policy aide
Today, the transition team announced
The Biden team has yet to name support staff for Kerry, but they will reportedly
At the same event where Biden named McCarthy as a member of his White House team, he also introduced his nominees to lead the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, EPA, and the Council on Environmental Quality as part of his administration’s broader “climate team.”
Biden’s nominee for energy secretary, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D), has argued
Interior secretary nominee Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) has served in Congress and as a member of the House Natural Resources Committee since 2019. Previously she worked
Biden’s choice for EPA administrator, Michael Regan, currently serves as head of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality. He previously worked as a career EPA air quality official under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. At the nomination event, Regan emphasized his interest in addressing geographical and racial disparities in environmental pollution, pointing to the “plight of fenceline communities.”
To serve as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, Biden has picked Brenda Mallory, who currently is director of regulatory policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center. She has previously served as a top lawyer at EPA and as CEQ’s chief counsel and, pending her confirmation, will be the first Black woman to lead the office.
Biden has yet to name leaders for agencies and offices with direct responsibility for climate science, most notably NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. President Obama’s pick for OSTP director, John Holdren, had a background in climate science and policy, but Biden has not yet named his choice for the role or indicated if the position will be central to his climate efforts. In any event, the Biden administration is likely to quickly name a new leader for the interagency U.S. Global Change Research Program, which OSTP oversees, as late last year the Trump administration replaced its executive director with fringe climatologist David Legates, who was removed
In naming some of his nominees for Cabinet and White House positions outside his “climate team,” Biden has selected individuals who have engaged substantially with climate policy. Notably, his pick to lead the Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA, is current Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D), who has set a goal
Brian Deese, the incoming director of the National Economic Council, worked as a top aide to Kerry during the negotiations over the Paris Agreement and later joined the financial giant BlackRock as global head of sustainable investing. Announcing Deese’s appointment, Biden remarked, “If we are going to tackle the climate crisis, then solutions must be woven into every aspect of our economic policy.”