EPA Head Says Agency's Mission Will Endure in the Trump Administration
In one of her final public speeches before leaving her post as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy said that grass-roots demand for clean air, energy and water will continue to allow the agency to make progress protecting the environment, even in the face of challenges when Donald Trump becomes president.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Nov. 21, McCarthy remained steadfast in her belief that the EPA mission will not be blocked by partisan politics or a new administration.
Although President-elect Trump has yet to nominate McCarthy’s successor, he has called global warming “a hoax.”
“The train to a global clean energy future has already left the station,” McCarthy said. “So we have a choice. We can choose to get on board and actually provide leadership, or we can choose to be left behind to stand stubbornly still.”
McCarthy said the last thing the public wants is to listen to the “rancor that too often characterizes our politics.”
“They may be fed up with what [they] hear from Washington, but that does not mean they do not care about what we do and do not do,” McCarthy said. “They care about clean air and water, fishable rivers and streams, and safe places to live, work and play.”
Although she did not specifically mention the heavy-truck greenhouse-gas Phase 1 and Phase 2 in-progress regulation, McCarthy said EPA will “continue to be essential to cutting carbon pollution in the United States and making good on our global leadership.”
She noted that the administration’s greenhouse-gas standards for cars and trucks will reduce carbon pollution and save money at the pump.
“While the world continues to change, EPA’s mission continues to endure,” she said. “...Our task is timeless. It is nonpartisan. It is essential to every single life.”
She added, “The world continues to be in motion, and it will continue changing regardless of the few who choose not to acknowledge it.”
