The Joe Biden transition team announced Thursday that the president-elect has picked Michael Regan, the 44-year-old head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. If confirmed, he would be the first African American man to hold that post. One of his key tasks will be restoring the reputation, morale, and science-informed operations of the 50-year-old agency whose mission Donald Trump and his appointees Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler undermined and tainted over the past four years.
Among other things, Regan will have to cope with the weakening or destruction of more than 130 environmental regulations on energy and pollution that the Trump regime implemented or is tied up in court trying to implement. Included are limits on vehicle emissions and methane emissions on coal-burning power plants. One obstacle Regan will face is Trump’s move to make new regulations harder to put in place. As the Biden-Harris administration focuses on the climate crisis, the EPA will play a major role, something the current occupant of the White House sought to obliterate.
Jody Freeman, a Harvard University law professor who served as White House counselor for energy and climate change in the Obama administration, told Lisa Friedman at The New York Times, “He faces a massive reconstruction and rebuilding operation. … He’s got a raft of rules that he’s got to rescind and replace and strengthen” and “He’s got to do this under some time pressure.”
Regan served for 10 years as an air quality specialist at the EPA in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and subsequently worked eight years for the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the nation’s most prominent environmental advocacy groups. In 2017, he was appointed to lead North Carolina’s environmental agency, replacing the previous head, a climate science denier who favored deregulation and fought to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan that limited greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
Among Regan’s successes running the state’s environmental agency were settlements to eliminate certain chemicals from one company’s manufacturing process and clean up toxic coal ash storage ponds, the nation’s toughest and most expensive such cleanup. One unnamed source says Regan was tough on Duke Energy, the state’s giant utility and operator of the ponds. He set up an office of environmental justice to advise the agency. He also drafted a climate change plan with the goal of making North Carolina carbon neutral by 2050. Biden has pledged to put the United States on a trajectory reach net-zero carbon emissions by that year.
An unnamed individual told Washington Post reporters, “Regan realizes that America’s environmental laws and policies must, first and foremost, protect the most vulnerable. Growing up with asthma in eastern North Carolina, Regan saw toxic pollution, agricultural waste and environmental destruction being concentrated near communities of color and low-income communities.”
The Post cited Ryke Longest, founding director of the Duke University Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, who said Regan helped restore morale at the DEQ in the wake of his predecessor who environmental advocates accused of weakening the department and giving more favorable treatment to polluters.
Kevin Bogardus at Greenwire (paywall)
reported that environmentalists are pleased with the choice of Regan:
EDF President Fred Krupp praised Regan's work at the North Carolina DEQ. "He quickly restored morale and then solved big problems by respecting science and bringing together people with different views — that's how he's been so effective protecting public health and the environment in North Carolina's divided government."
In North Carolina, Regan "has led a large and complex agency with skill, openness to new ideas and a determination to achieve real results for the people of his state," Krupp said. "The selection of Michael Regan makes it clear that Joe Biden is serious about making real progress on climate change, improving public health and addressing environmental justice. He will ensure that science, law and a commitment to a healthier future will be at the center of America's environmental policies."
Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen said: "As EPA Administrator, Regan will play a key role in solving the climate crisis and protecting the health of all communities. We will do everything in our power to support and push Regan to repair the damage done by the Trump administration, take bold action on climate solutions, and genuinely address environmental injustice that has been allowed to go on too long."
If confirmed by the Senate, Regan can make it a new day at EPA, with the agency again dedicated to its original mission of protecting the environment rather than making it easier for polluters to wreck it. But with at least half of Senate comprising climate science deniers and even more members intent on shielding polluters from new regulations, it will be rough sledding for its new chief. But one reason Regan was picked in addition to his relevant experience is his reported ability for working across the aisle with Republicans in the North Carolina legislature.