To deliver the next US administration's climate plan, the EPA could make all the difference. Joe Biden wants to entrust it to Michael Regan.
Week after week, the team of Joe Biden is taking shape; from January, he will officially take the place of Donald Trump at the White House. The president-elect promises to act in the spirit of discontinuity, not least on the environmental front. A leading role will therefore fall to Michael Regan, designated as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Official confirmation will have to wait for a favourable Senate vote.
He was not the first choice and does not bring with him a high media profile, notes the New York Times. But Michael S. Regan, already secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, has a considerable responsibility ahead of him: taking the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency, the flagship ally of the new Democratic administration's energy and climate plan. If the Senate gives the green light, Regan will be the first Black man to hold this post.
His work in North Carolina has received words of praise from environmental organisations. His contribution to the settlement reached with Duke Energy was crucial. The energy giant was required to undertake the largest coal ash clean-up operation in the state's history. Regan also ordered chemical company Chemours, a former subsidiary of DuPont, to address PFAS contamination in the waters of the Cape Fear River. Also consulting with him, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper drew up a plan to achieve climate neutrality in North Carolina by 2050.
Michael Regan's appointment is the missing piece to complete the team dedicated to the environmental transition, led by two heavyweights of American politics. The point of reference for federal climate policy will be Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator under Barack Obama. Former Secretary of State John Kerry will instead serve as special envoy for climate at international engagements.
Mobilising more than 5 trillion dollars of investment in renewables and new low-emission technologies. Achieving 100 per cent energy from renewable sources and zeroing out net emissions from the United States by 2050. The climate plan with which Joe Biden stood in the election could not be more different from the line followed by the previous administration.
Turning it into reality, however, will not be so straightforward. With a Congress set to remain split down the middle, the EPA will be the decisive factor. An agency that emerged weakened from the last four years. Trump had entrusted it to Scott Pruitt, who declared himself sceptical even about the link between CO2 emissions and global warming. Embroiled in a scandal over extravagant spending during his tenure, he resigned and was replaced by Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry.
Regan "faces an enormous rebuilding and reorganisation operation," comments to the New York daily Harvard University professor Jody Freeman, former energy and climate adviser to the Obama administration. He will need to "lift staff morale" and "make clear that science and integrity are back. He has a range of rules to undo, replace and strengthen." All of this against a tight schedule. The climate crisis cannot wait, and four long years of lost ground must be made up.
