Senate panel advances Biden’s EPA nominee

WASHINGTON — The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday advanced Michael Regan’s nomination to lead the EPA.

The bipartisan 14-6 vote bodes well for the nomination as it heads to the full Senate.

Committee Chairman Sen. Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., said just before the vote that Regan has brought people together in his role as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

“He’s fully capable of doing that again as EPA administrator, working with all of us to address climate change and protect our air, our water, our natural resources, while helping to create good-paying jobs for the American people and strengthening our economy,” Carper said. “And he’s going to make sure that all of our communities and neighbors can be part of that progress.”

Regan would be the first Black man to lead the 50-year-old agency, which will be at the heart of the administration’s ambitious environmental agenda, including its efforts to address climate change.

The committee’s 10 Democrats voted in favor of the nomination, along with four Republicans. A couple of the GOP senators who voted against the nomination praised Regan but questioned how much authority he would have as administrator.

“As an individual, he is absolutely the type of person that I would like to see leading a federal agency,” said the panel’s top Republican, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.

While praising Regan as a thoughtful and forthright public servant, Capito criticized other members of the administration, such as White House domestic climate change adviser Gina McCarthy.

Capito said she fears McCarthy and others in the administration want to return to regulations implemented under President Barack Obama, such as the Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States.