Gina McCarthy

Gina McCarthy

Gina McCarthy is the first "White House National Climate Advisor" under Joe Biden. From 2013 to 2017 she served as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator under Barack Obama. Gina McCarthy was president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) before joining Biden's team.

Background

Bio verbatim from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):

Gina McCarthy (she/her) became the president and chief executive officer of NRDC in January 2020, leading more than 700 attorneys, scientists, advocates, and policy experts that make NRDC one of the country’s most effective environmental action organizations. McCarthy has been a leading advocate for smart, successful strategies to protect public health and the environment for more than 30 years.

McCarthy served as the 13th administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation under President Obama. Her leadership led to significant federal, state, and local actions on critical issues related to the environment, economy, energy, and transportation. McCarthy ushered in a paradigm shift in national environmental policy, which expressly linked it to global public health. She led initiatives that cut air pollution, protected water resources, strengthened chemical safety, and reduced greenhouse gases to protect more communities from negative health impacts. McCarthy signed the Clean Power Plan, which set the first national standards for reducing carbon emissions from existing power plants, underscoring the country’s commitment to domestic climate action and spurring international efforts that helped secure the Paris Agreement.

As assistant administrator, McCarthy strengthened collaborative efforts with state environmental and public health agencies and organizations across the United States to identify and reduce threats to human health from harmful air and carbon pollution by updating health- and technology-based emissions standards, establishing greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks, promoting energy efficiency and alternative fuels, and mitigating harmful exposures to indoor air pollution.

At the state level, McCarthy served as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, deputy secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development, and undersecretary of policy for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. In Connecticut, she was instrumental in developing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state effort to reduce emissions contributing to global warming, which has spurred economic growth, improved public health, decreased energy demand, and helped mitigate electricity price increases across the region. In Massachusetts, McCarthy advised five governors on environmental affairs, worked at the state and local levels on critical environmental issues, and coordinated policies on economic growth, energy, transportation, and the environment.

At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, McCarthy was a professor of the practice of public health in the Department of Environmental Health and currently chair of the board of advisors at the Harvard Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE). She also serves as a member of the boards of the Energy Foundation and Ceres.

McCarthy holds a master's degree in environmental health engineering and planning and policy from Tufts University and a bachelor's in social anthropology from University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Bio verbatim from Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School (from 2017):

A career public servant in both Democratic and Republican administrations, Gina McCarthy has been a leading advocate for common sense strategies to protect public health and the environment for more than thirty years. As the head of EPA under President Obama, she led historic progress to achieve the administration's public health and environmental protection goals and Climate Action Plan. In 2015, McCarthy signed the Clean Power Plan, which set the first-ever national standards for reducing carbon emissions from existing power plants, underscoring the country's commitment to domestic climate action and spurring international efforts that helped secure the Paris Climate Agreement. During her tenure, EPA initiatives cut air pollution, protected water resources, reduced greenhouse gases and strengthened chemical safety to better protect more Americans, especially the most vulnerable, from negative health impacts. Internationally, McCarthy worked with the UN and WHO on a variety of efforts and represented the U.S. on global initiatives to reduce high risk sources of pollution. Known for her pragmatic approaches and disarming, plain-speaking style, McCarthy has earned the respect of the environmental, public health and business communities with her thorough understanding of all sides of climate, air quality, chemical safety, environmental justice and health equity, and water, land and natural resource protection and restoration discussions.

Before joining EPA, she served five Massachusetts Democratic and Republican administrations and was Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. She joined EPA in 2009 as Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. In 2013, she was chosen by President Obama to spearhead his climate efforts at the federal level as EPA Administrator.

Netroots Nation 2021

Mustafa Santiago Ali, Jennifer Granholm, Gina McCarthy at Netroots

Mustafa Santiago Ali, Jennifer Granholm, and Gina McCarthy addressed Netroots Nation in October, 2021.

NETROOTS NATION 2021 OPENING KEYNOTE Plenary; Thu, 10/07/2021 - 05:00pm (Eastern)

Pundits talk about COVID and getting “back to normal,” but we progressives have a message: Normal isn’t good enough. We want bold, progressive solutions on issues like economic policy, climate change, immigration and more. Hear progressive leaders discuss their vision for progressive change on key issues and discuss how we can build momentum for 2022 and beyond.

You’ll hear from DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison; Rep. Joe Neguse with immigration activists Tania Chairez and Marissa Molina; Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and Rep. Rashida Tlaib. We’ll end the session with a special conversation with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, and Mustafa Santiago Ali.

Led by: Cheryl Contee

Panelists: Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Tania Chairez, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Jaime Harrison, White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, Marissa Molina, Rep. Joe Neguse, Joe Sanberg, Mustafa Santiago Ali, Rep. Rashida Tlaib

Meeting with Radical Environmentalists at the White House

Gina McCarthy brought in radical left activists to the White House to discuss "climate change policies" in October, 2021 according to visitor logs "released by the administration" in May 2022. Article verbatim:

On a Monday in late October last year, President Joe Biden’s climate adviser Gina McCarthy convened influential environmental leaders inside the White House complex for a discussion about climate change policies.

Sixteen prominent environmentalists, including the heads of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, convened with McCarthy and other Biden White House officials in room 230A of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the West Wing, according to visitor logs recently released by the administration.

The meeting of environmental heavy hitters stands out in part because it’s one of the few in-person meetings McCarthy hosted at the White House last year, according to visitor logs for the executive complex, the most recent of which were released to the public last earlier this month.

The roster for the meeting — the biggest group the records show McCarthy hosting during her first year on the job — also indicates which climate change advocates have the ear of top Biden aides. Vice President Kamala Harris and McCarthy’s deputy, Ali Zaidi, also attended the meeting, according to a White House spokesperson.

The guest list: John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, Tom Steyer of NextGen America, Kathleen Welch of Corridor Partners, Deborah Brown of the American Lung Association, Michael Brune of the Sierra Club, Wendy Wendlandt of Environment America, Peggy Shepard of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Gene Karpinski of the League of Conservation Voters, Johanna Chao Kreilick of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Margie Alt of the Climate Action Campaign, Manish Bapna of NRDC, Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund, Collin O'Mara of the National Wildlife Federation, Elena Rios of the National Hispanic Medical Association, Ari Appel of Building Back Together, and Abigail Dillen of Earthjustice.

The participants remain tight-lipped about what happened in that closed-door session. Many of them did not respond to requests for comment; others offered only broad descriptions of the issues discussed.

The Oct. 25 huddle was a “meeting among environmental leaders and senior White House staff to exchange ideas about how best to address the climate crisis,” said NRDC spokesperson Kate Kiely.

Laura Kate Bender of the American Lung Association said her group doesn’t generally comment on the content of meetings but said that “the Lung Association advocates for measures to reduce air pollution and combat climate change because of their public health and environmental justice benefits.”

Covid-19 tests were required and provided to participants ahead of the meeting, Bender said, and everyone was provided with and wore N-95 masks.

Podesta, the founder of the Center for American Progress, is among the people whose names have been floated as a possible replacement for McCarthy when she’s expected to step down in the coming weeks. McCarthy’s deputy Zaidi is widely viewed as the leading contender to take the climate adviser position after she leaves (Greenwire, May 15).

Meetings with automakers, Google, Dow

McCarthy was listed as the host for only nine meetings with outside visitors during her first year in office, the records show. That does not include meetings among White House staff, virtual meetings and meetings that she may have attended but was not the point of contact on the visitor logs.

“Gina, Ali and our staff have taken many in-person and virtual meetings since the beginning of the administration,” said the White House spokesperson. “The administration has prioritized engagement and meetings across an entire range of climate stakeholders.”

Zaidi was listed as the host of only three in-person White House meetings during the first year of the Biden administration; Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory held five, the logs show.

Back in July 2021, McCarthy met with Hyundai Motor Group Chair Euisun Chung and other representatives from the automaker. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also attended that meeting, according to the White House, where participants discussed Hyundai's plans for U.S. manufacturing. The automaker on Friday announced plans to build a new electric vehicle plant in Georgia, which the White House said came “as a result of some of our engagement with them on EVs.”

Hyundai at the time was lobbying the government on issues including electric vehicle infrastructure, hydrogen and fuel cell policy, and the Biden administration’s goals for zero-emission vehicles, according to a disclosure filed last year.

Executives from Google LLC and its parent Alphabet Inc. met with McCarthy in late October a few days after she huddled with environmental leaders. The climate adviser hosted Google CFO Ruth Porat, Treasurer Juan Rajlin, Public Policy Director Johanna Shelton, and Head of Strategy Anne Wall on Oct. 28, 2021, the logs show.

Google is one of the world’s largest operators of data centers and has committed to run all of those centers and its campuses on carbon-free energy by 2030.

The White House meeting came weeks after CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new suite of actions aimed at helping individuals to increase their own sustainability, like showing the least carbon-intensive driving directions and optimizing thermostats to make the best use of renewable energy.

Google and the White House did not respond to requests for comment about that meeting.

Zaidi, who could soon take over the climate adviser job, met last year with officials from Dow Inc. and NextEra Energy Inc.

On Oct. 14, Zaidi met with Dow representatives including CEO Jim Fitterling, the logs show. “Dow leaders met with White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi to discuss carbon reduction policy for hard-to-abate industrial sectors,” Dow spokesperson Kyle Bandlow said in an email.

NextEra Executive Chair James Robo and the company’s head of federal government affairs, Philip Musser, met with Zaidi on Oct. 28. The Florida-based energy company owns the electric utility Florida Power & Light Co., as well as other utilities and electric generating companies. Last fall, NextEra was lobbying the federal government on issues including renewable energy, transmission and energy storage, according to the company’s lobbying disclosure from that period.

The Dow and NextEra meetings were about “legislation and clean energy policy,” the White House spokesperson said. McCarthy attended both of those meetings as well.

In January of this year, Zaidi and the White House climate policy office chief of staff Maggie Thomas met with AmeriCorps officials “regarding Civilian Climate Corps,” according to the White House. AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith and Yasmeen Shaheen-McConnell, the agency’s senior adviser for strategic partnerships, met with Biden climate officials as the administration was pushing for billions of dollars to fund a fleet of government-funded jobs to combat climate change. Congress later agreed to spend far less than that — about $20 million — to get the program off the ground (E&E Daily, March 10).

Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, appears to have had her most widely attended meeting on July 22, with environmental justice advocates. The guests included Kerry Duggan, who was an energy adviser to Biden when he was vice president and now leads the sustainability consultancy SustainabiliD; and Catherine Flowers, an environmental justice advocate, researcher and former MacArthur Fellow.

EPA visits

Several top EPA officials met with climate officials during Biden’s first year in office. Vicki Arroyo, EPA’s top policy official, and three other staffers from EPA’s policy office visited Mallory in August. McCarthy also met in August with Alison Cassady, EPA’s deputy chief of staff for policy.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan made some visits to the White House and occasionally brought family members.

He brought his wife and son on Dec. 20, at Biden’s invitation, the logs show. Regan’s calendar, previously obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, shows a “Cabinet Holiday Tour” at the White House that evening.

Regan also visited with his wife, son and parents on March 17, the day he was ceremonially sworn into office by Vice President Kamala Harris. He had lunch at the White House with chief of staff Ron Klain and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo earlier in the day, Regan’s calendar shows.

He dropped in Feb. 4 as well, the day after his confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

GOP accuses McCarthy of violating ethics pledge

Republicans have criticized McCarthy for meeting with an NRDC leader during the meeting of environmentalists. GOP lawmakers contend that the meeting appeared to be a violation of the Biden ethics pledge signed by McCarthy, who led NRDC before she took the White House job.

Top Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee sent McCarthy a letter in April asking for all of her communications with NRDC since she took office. “Meeting with your former employer raises concerns that senior level Administration officials are not taking their ethical obligations seriously,” wrote Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).

The Biden ethics pledge generally prohibits administration appointees from participating in matters involving a former employer.

But a White House spokesperson said last month that the pledge allows officials to attend large group meetings with their former employer (Greenwire, April 28).

Asked about the visitor log entries, the White House again argued that McCarthy’s attendance at the meeting is allowable under the ethics pledge, citing the exception for “a matter of general applicability and participation in the meeting or other event is open to all interested parties.” Even though the meeting was not open to all potential attendees, the Office of Government Ethics has interpreted that provision to apply to meetings with a “multiplicity of parties,” which was the case here, the spokesperson said.

House Republicans asked McCarthy to send over documents including her calendar entries and communications with NRDC by May 12, but they hadn’t received a response as of May 20, said Jessica Collins, the committee’s GOP communications director.

“There is an overall lack of transparency at the Biden Administration so it’s no surprise the White House hasn’t responded to our request for information about Gina McCarthy’s meeting with her former employer that pushes for radical Green New Deal policies,” Comer said in a statement. “President Biden pledged to the American people that he would hold his administration to high ethical standards yet he refuses to comply with congressional oversight of possible ethics violations.”

Comer, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, could become its chair next year if the GOP wins control of the House. Holding the gavel would give him more power to investigate the Biden administration and compel documents from White House officials.

Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, was also critical of the White House aides’ meetings. Her oil and natural gas group didn’t request any meetings, but she sees the disclosures as a sign of where Biden’s priorities are.

“I’m not surprised that the White House has primarily met with environmentalists, as the environmental lobby is their main constituency at the expense of working Americans,” she said. “The environmental lobby is clearly driving the White House’s energy and climate change agenda, which is why the president remains unable to pivot and reverse the policies that are creating high energy prices.”

Government transparency advocates have welcomed Biden’s release of visitors logs, particularly after the Trump administration largely refused to do so. The Trump White House eventually released visitor logs to some White House offices — including the Council on Environmental Quality — to settle a lawsuit.

But the White House visitor logs have long been seen as an incomplete view of who’s influencing top officials. And with many of the White House’s meetings conducted virtually during the pandemic, the logs detailing in-person visits don’t offer a full picture of who’s meeting with Biden’s climate aides. The White House has no plans to release virtual meeting logs, according to a spokesperson.

Without Zoom logs, the White House visitor logs end up losing most of their significance, said Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project, a government ethics watchdog group.

Still, the in-person meeting logs “can be significant to show who is important enough to be paraded around,” he said. “Figuring out who gets that kind of right can be useful.”

Climate Crisis Action Plan

On Thursday, July 16 at 4:00 p.m. PDT, Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) will host a virtual town hall on the newly released Climate Crisis Action Plan, a comprehensive Congressional framework to protect the health of all families, make sure our communities can withstand the impacts of climate change, and grow our economy and put Americans back to work. Rep. Huffman will be joined by former State Senator Fran Pavley, author of California’s landmark climate law AB32, and President and CEO of Natural Resources Defense Council Gina McCarthy for this community dialogue. Viewers can submit their questions in advance to huffmanQandA@mail.house.gov or ask them live via Facebook live.

Vietnam visit

Administrator Gina McCarthy, Remarks at the Hanoi University of Natural Resources and the Environment.

April 16, 2014.

Thank you, Dr. Nhan, for your kind introduction. Good morning and xin chao.

It's an honor to be the first U.S. EPA Administrator to visit Vietnam—and the Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment. It’s an even higher honor to address the next generation of Vietnam’s environmental leaders.

Asks Black Students to Become Activists for Obama Environmental Policies

In 2014, Gina McCarthy told black students at an event sponsored by the Hip Hop Caucus that they need to become 'champion climate justice advocates' for 'greenhouse gas emission standards for new power plants...and the rules for existing plants...'

From Liberty Unyielding, dated April 28, 2014 in article titled "EPA chief to students: ‘Pollution is holding back millions of African Americans’":

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy attended an event Thursday at Clark Atlanta University hosted by the Hip Hop Caucus, a non-profit 501 (c)(4) group that “promotes political activism,” as reported at the Huffington Post. Some of the issues on which they focus are gun control, voting rights and climate change.

As reported at the Brenner Brief, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, “argues often that climate change is the ‘lunch counter moment’ for the younger generation.”

The EPA chief encouraged black students, who are “most vulnerable to climate change,” to become “champion climate justice advocates” by supporting some of the FDA rules currently being pushed by environmental activists. McCarthy mentioned “greenhouse gas emission standards for new power plants that the agency released last fall, and the rules for existing plants” that are set to be released on June 1.

It is a matter of “equity,” the EPA chief said, as minorities have been “overburdened by pollution and environmental health hazards for far too long…”

“You can’t ensure environmental justice, and we can’t deliver on this president’s promise of opportunity for all,” she continued, “without giving people clean air and clean water and clean land to live on…”

A recorded message from McCarthy is posted on the Hip Hop Caucus website, where she says,

“Pollution is holding back millions of African Americans fighting for middle class security.” She continues, “Environmental justice is social justice.” McCarthy also says, “We have a moral obligation to act now.”