The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.Legislators voted 66-34 Wednesday to have Michael Regan lead the agency.Regan has served as North Carolina’s top environmental regulator since 2017.The confirmation puts Regan as the first Black man to run the EPA. Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator in President Barack Obama’s first term, was the first African American to lead the agency.Regan is known in his home state for pursuing cleanups of industrial toxins and helping low-income and minority communities significantly affected by pollution.During his Senate nomination hearing in February, Regan pledged to “move with a sense of urgency” to address the climate crisis.”Our priorities for the environment are clear: we will restore the role of science and transparency at EPA. We will support the dedicated and talented career officials. We will move with a sense of urgency on climate change, and we will stand up for environmental justice and equity,” he said.Regan also reflected during the hearing on his environmental career, which began with an environmental science degree and an internship at the agency he’s now tasked with leading.”I knew I wanted to find a way to serve, and that led to my first summer internship at EPA. I spent nearly ten years at EPA under presidents of both parties,” Regan told the Senate panel.”It’s an honor of a lifetime to be invited back,” he added. One of Regan’s biggest challenges will be returning scientific integrity to an agency that under former President Donald Trump frequently allowed business groups and other special interests to “play a large role in crafting the agency’s policies,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the top Republican on the environment panel, said Regan would return the EPA to the policy agenda of the Obama administration, an agenda she said “absolutely devastated my state and other energy-producing states.”Capito also complained that Regan will take cues from Biden’s White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy, a former EPA chief. “For almost two months now unaccountable czar Gina McCarthy has been working both behind the scenes and in front of the press to lay the groundwork for the Biden administration’s agenda,” Capito said. “She’s operating this stronghold office with no transparency, outside of the Senate confirmation process.”CNN contributed to this report.
The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Legislators voted 66-34 Wednesday to have Michael Regan lead the agency.
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Regan has served as North Carolina’s top environmental regulator since 2017.
The confirmation puts Regan as the first Black man to run the EPA.
Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator in President Barack Obama’s first term, was the first African American to lead the agency.
Regan is known in his home state for pursuing cleanups of industrial toxins and helping low-income and minority communities significantly affected by pollution.
During his Senate nomination hearing in February, Regan pledged to “move with a sense of urgency” to address the climate crisis.
“Our priorities for the environment are clear: we will restore the role of science and transparency at EPA. We will support the dedicated and talented career officials. We will move with a sense of urgency on climate change, and we will stand up for environmental justice and equity,” he said.
Regan also reflected during the hearing on his environmental career, which began with an environmental science degree and an internship at the agency he’s now tasked with leading.
“I knew I wanted to find a way to serve, and that led to my first summer internship at EPA. I spent nearly ten years at EPA under presidents of both parties,” Regan told the Senate panel.
“It’s an honor of a lifetime to be invited back,” he added.
One of Regan’s biggest challenges will be returning scientific integrity to an agency that under former President Donald Trump frequently allowed business groups and other special interests to “play a large role in crafting the agency’s policies,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the top Republican on the environment panel, said Regan would return the EPA to the policy agenda of the Obama administration, an agenda she said “absolutely devastated my state and other energy-producing states.”
Capito also complained that Regan will take cues from Biden’s White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy, a former EPA chief. “For almost two months now unaccountable czar Gina McCarthy has been working both behind the scenes and in front of the press to lay the groundwork for the Biden administration’s agenda,” Capito said. “She’s operating this stronghold office with no transparency, outside of the Senate confirmation process.”
CNN contributed to this report.
