Gina McCarthy, AG81 was skeptical when President Joe Biden asked her to join his White House team to address the climate crisis.
After spending 40 years fighting for environmental sustainability, as a state regulator, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama, as well as CEO and president, the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council, Biden knew that he was serious about making investments that would make a difference in climate.
Biden made the link between climate and health, environmental and racial injustice, and he framed the issue in terms of what was needed after the pandemic of job growth. It justit owned me, she said. New York Times. It liberated me from the drudgery climate is a planetary burden that has a terrible future and put it into a framing which, to me, energized it.
The White House announced last spring that McCarthy would be the first White House National Climate advisor. This position is responsible for overseeing all aspects of climate policy and planning. 350.org’s Bill McKibben tweeted that McCarthy was a great choice and celebrated her selection.
McKibben said that she knows the issues. She is funny and tough and I am sure she understands that we are out of time. Sunrise Movement, a youth activist organization, was enthusiastically enthusiastic. Their national spokesperson stated that McCarthy was one of our initial choices for the role due to her understanding of the urgency and need to use every tool in the executive branch to end the climate crisis.
McCarthy is not a bomb-thrower. She has had a broad view on environmental progress throughout her many years of service in government. This has earned her a reputation for being a strong negotiator with a strong work ethic and a keen eye for how to cut through bureaucracies. She worked with six Republicans at the state level in Connecticut, Massachusetts. Business leaders and activists have admired her straightforward style.
McCarthy was nominated for her current position. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) said Vox she was tough as nails and smart and someone who gets it at a technical, dirt-under-your-fingernails level. She also knows politics. Gina is very practical and creative.
McCarthy said in a Tufts interview in 2009 that Tufts taught her to be a horrible bureaucrat. I don’t think it is possible to separate environmental and health issues. I try to see it through the eyes of humans and what they need for a sustainable world. Because there was a direct connection between what was happening in people’s health, and the pollution they were being exposed too, I found myself in the environmental sector.
From Town Public Health Office to the White House
Regina Gina McCarthy was born and raised in Brighton, Boston. She received a University of MassachusettsBoston degree in Anthropology, which she credits with helping to see issues from multiple perspectives.
She was driven to enter public service and earned a combined M.S. In order to be able to serve the public, she earned a combined M.S. in environmental engineering and planning and policies at Tufts. During that time, she also worked as a Canton municipal health officer. Those early experiences helped her understand the effects of the environment on people’s health, livelihood, and she worked to curb pollution and combat hazardous waste in a series of appointments as a state representative advising on environmental issues.
McCarthy had previously been the Connecticut’s state environmental protection officer. In 2013, Barack Obama appointed McCarthy to become the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s thirteenth administrator. Obama’s blessing, she worked to transform the agency to make the connection between environment and public health more explicit.
Under her leadership, the agency created the Clean Power Plan. It established the first standards to reduce greenhouse gases from coal plants. Four years later, Donald Trump was elected as president. She told demoralized civil servants to keep their feet on the ground as the new administration attempted to undermine many of her policies. McCarthy used the NRDC to sue President Trump more than 100 times, winning nine of ten cases to protect her work.
Now, back in the White House she has worked to not merely restore her legacy but to expand it. With an ambitious goal by the administration to reduce greenhouse emission by 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050, McCarthy acknowledges that this is a daunting task. She told the audience that it was essential to move quickly. Washington Post.
She insists America has gone through a significant change. Clean energy is now more affordable than fossil fuels, and it offers workers new opportunities. If you look at climate change from the perspective of what type of jobs we are going to create, it can be a topic that is on your kitchen table. How can we ensure that every community is supported? How can we ensure that workers are not left behind? What kind of future do your children want? McCarthy agreed.
McCarthy has a broad perspective that McCarthy hopes will allow her to cut through Washington’s red tape and make the practical progress she is known for. This will help make investments that reduce emissions, cut costs, create jobs, and improve health.
Already, the administration has introduced new environmental justice regulations to ensure that 40 percent of federal funds are directed to underserved communities. $5 billion was also allocated for half a million electric vehicle charging stations across America.
It continues to push Congress for new tax breaks, incentives, and tax breaks to support clean energy and transportation via its Build Back Better plan. McCarthy stated at a recent Politico event that we have set ambitious goals for clean-energy. They are already coming to life.
Michael Blanding, a Boston-based freelancer writer, is here.