Biden launches climate team: ‘no time to waste’
Diverse group vows to champion the working class
Just as the United States needed a unified, national response to COVID-19, it needs one for dealing with climate change, President-elect Joe Biden said Saturday as he introduced his environmental team.
“We literally have no time to waste,” Biden said.
The approach is a shift from President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost oil and gas production while rolling back government efforts intended to safeguard the environment. The incoming Biden team will try to undo or block many of Trump’s initiatives. Members said they want to help lowincome, working class and minority communities hit hardest by fossil fuel pollution and climate change.
Biden described them as “brilliant, qualified, tested and barrier-busting... There are more people of color in our Cabinet than any Cabinet ever, more women than ever.”
The nominees had compelling personal stories.
New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland would be the first Native American to lead the Interior Department, which has wielded clout over the nation’s tribes for generations. She said her life once included homelessness and food stamps.
“Consider the fact that a former secretary of the Interior once proclaimed his goal, was to quote,
‘civilize or exterminate’ us,” she said. “I’m a living testament to the failure of that horrific ideology.“
Haaland was referring to Alexander H.H. Stuart, who said that in 1851.
Former two-term Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is in line to be energy secretary. She arrived in the U.S. from Canada at age 4. Her father worked as a bank teller and retired as head of the bank.
“It’s because of my family’s journey and my experience in fighting for hardworking Michigan families that I have become obsessed, obsessed with gaining good-paying jobs in America in a global economy,” Granholm said.
North Carolina official Michael Regan would be the first African American man to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Regan, the state environmental head since 2017 who won respect pursuing cleanups of industrial toxins and helping lowincome and minority communities deeply affected by pollution.
Regan grew up in North Carolina hunting and fishing with his dad and grandfather, loving the outdoors and its natural resources despite a respiratory condition requiring him to use inhalers.
“Since the start of my career, my goals have been the same,” Regan said. “To safeguard our natural resources, to improve the quality of our air and water, to protect our families and our communities, and to help them see the opportunities of a cleaner, healthier world.”
The Council on Environmental Quality nominee is Brenda Mallory. She would be the first Black American in the job since it was created more than 50 years ago.
The office reviews big infrastructure projects, advising the president on major environmental issues.
Two team members do not need Senate approval: national climate adviser, former EPA adminstrator Gina Mccarthy and Ali Zaidi to be her deputy.