Carbon cutter
As was obvious from remarks Thursday by Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and others, Gina McCarthy will continue to face obstructionism as the 19th administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. But, thanks to a deal that should never have had to have been made, at least the EPA now
has an administrator.
She's not exactly a rookie when it comes to battling obstruction. As the top air quality regulator in the Obama EPA, McCarthy oversaw some of the administration's toughest policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions, smog and mercury pollution.
It wasn't so much McCarthy with her sterling, bipartisan credentials that held up her nomination, but rather the Republicans' effort to cripple various government operations that they don't like but can't get rid of. And make no mistake, in the Senate and House sit plenty of climate-change deniers who would, if they could, get rid of the EPA altogether. In the words of Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, they see it being engaged in “aggressive bureaucratic power grabs.” The rhetoric has it that EPA's rule-making is killing jobs and crippling the economy when, in fact, done right, regulating carbon emissions will mean more jobs, a sustainable economy and a healthier environment.
Whether they're just ignorant scientific illiterates or malignant puppets of the fossil fuel industry, these deniers and their enablers who keep delaying action on climate change will not be standing down anytime soon. Fortunately, McCarthy can push action on her own through the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act without requiring any additional legislation, which has no chance of passage in the current make-up of Congress. But that doesn't mean smooth sailing ahead. Quite the contrary. Erica Martinson writes:
The job will test her ability to produce power-plant regulations that can survive the attacks that are sure to come from all sides. She’ll face congressional push-back, pressure from the environmental lobby, a sharply divided yet entrenched energy industry and state governors who are either impatient for action or dead-set against new federal rules. Her rules will face a flurry of legal challenges—making it essential she can write regulations that will hold up in court. [...]
Foreshadowing the difficulty is the fact that more than 20 state attorneys general oppose the idea of greenhouse gas regulations, including those from Texas, Florida and Virginia. On the other side are nearly a dozen states, including New York, Massachusetts and Oregon, that have already threatened to sue the agency if it doesn’t regulate the emissions. Some East Coast states are already involved in a regional cap and trade program, and California is working its own climate rules.
While the obstructionists, both the myopic ones and the greedy ones, will present headaches for McCarthy, there will be a push in another direction from environmental advocates. There really is a war on coal—a necessary war that should not also be a war on coal miners—that we
climate hawks are not going to retreat on. Because we can't. Because to do so condemns us and future generations to an even worse situation than we already face because of decades of propaganda-driven inaction.
McCarthy's got a daunting array of tasks on the most important issue of our era. But even her toughest critics would never say she's not up to the job.