Regan gets nod to begin rebuilding project at EPA
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Michael S. Regan, the former top environmental regulator for North Carolina, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and drive some of the Biden administration’s biggest climate and regulatory policies.
As administrator, Regan, who began his career at the EPA and worked in environmental and renewable energy advocacy before becoming secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality, will be tasked to rebuild an agency that lost thousands of employees under the Trump administration. Political appointees under Donald J. Trump spent the past four years unwinding dozens of clean air and water protections, while rolling back all of the Obama administration’s major climate rules.
Central to Regan’s mission will be putting forward aggressive new regulations to meet President Joe Biden’s pledge of eliminating fossil fuel emissions from the electric power sector by 2035, significantly reducing emissions from automobiles and preparing the United States to emit no net carbon pollution by the middle of the century. Several proposed regulations are already being prepared, administration officials have said.
His nomination was approved by a vote of 66-34, with all Democrats and 16 Republicans voting in favor.
“There are few leadership roles in the federal government that have greater responsibility for setting environmental goals and climate policies than the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Regan, he said, “is the person for the job at this critical moment.”
Regan will be the first Black man to serve as EPA administrator. At 44, he will also be one of Biden’s youngest Cabinet secretaries and will have to navigate a crowded field of older, more seasoned Washington veterans already installed in key environmental positions.