California air, climate regulator hopes to run EPA

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Over four decades, Mary Nichols has been the regulator behind some of the nation’s most ambitious climate policies and, in recent years, she has been their staunchest defender against President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle them.

With Joe Biden heading to the White House, Nichols hopes she is not done yet.

Nichols, 75, ends her second tenure as chair of the California Air Resources Board next month, a job that has made her the top air and climate regulator for the nation’s most populous and economically influential state. She is viewed as a leading contender to be named as Biden’s administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Heather McTeer Toney, senior director of Moms Clean Air Force, and Mustafa Santiago Ali of the National Wildlife Federation, both former EPA officials, also have support for the job. Biden has signaled climate change will be a top priority.

For Nichols, it would cap a career of championing stringent air pollution rules, negotiating landmark vehicle emissions standards and implementing California’s carbon trading system. She worked at the EPA from 1993-97 as head of the Office of Air and Radiation.

“Not everybody has actually run a climate action program, or an air program for that matter. And I like working with large bureaucracies,” Nichols told The Associated Press. “If they offered it, I would take it.”

Biden’s transition team hasn’t said when he’ll announce environmental and energy nominees.

Mary Nichols