Regan was confirmed by a 66-34 vote, with 16 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats. He will be the first black man to run the EPA, and the second African-American to do so after Obama’s first term, Lisa Jackson.
In North Carolina, he received praise from environmentalists for blocking the expansion of the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline and for securing a decoy agreement with Duke Energy to clean up coal-fired waste ponds from the state’s power plants. He also got a major settlement to address contamination of toxic “forever” PFAS chemicals with the manufacturer Chemours.
As administrator of the EPA, Regan will lead an agency that will play a key regulatory role in President Joe Biden’s aggressive climate agenda. The top of his to-do list will set a new climate rule for power stations now that a federal court has rejected the version of the Trump EPA, tightened the limits for exhaust pipes for cars and light trucks and eliminated methane leaks reducing the oil and gas sector.
The power rule that is expected to limit carbon dioxide emissions will be a major driver in Biden’s plans to eliminate greenhouse gases from the country’s electricity network by 2035 and put the country on track to emit net emissions by mid-century. reach.
The nominated candidate for the Biden administration as Regan’s deputy, Janet McCabe, has a deep record of drafting aggressive environmental regulations, including the version of Obama’s system of government, which blocked the Supreme Court before it could take effect. Other top Obama officials have also returned to the agency to work under Regan, including Dan Utech as chief of staff and Joe Goffman in the office responsible for air pollution regulations.
Although Regan can find support from Republican lawmakers and government officials on issues such as PFAS clean-ups and the Superfund program dealing with contaminated sites, it is unlikely he will be able to balance Biden’s plans for aggressive climate action with Republicans’ opposition to the rules. what they say. threaten their states’ fossil fuel industries.
Meanwhile, Regan will have to address a number of management issues at the agency. The EPA has shaken off hundreds of experts over the past four years, even though many states have also cut back on their environmental regulators. And the Trump administration’s repeated efforts to reduce the EPA’s budget, coupled with the deregulating agenda and controversial science policies, have left morale low among many workers.
Regan was able to avoid some of the Republican criticism of other Biden officials who held the best positions in the Obama administration, including White House climate advisers Gina McCarthy and John Kerry, while sidestepping bias over old wounds. He also deftly navigated through the confirmation process, avoiding taking positions on most policies, promising to listen to all sides before deciding on key regulations, and promising to visit so many red states that Shelley Moore Capito, member of the environment and public works, rankings (RW.Va.) joked that Regan ‘might visit the whole country’.
His home Republican senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis helped drive his nomination by proposing him during his trial and expanding his reputation for reaching out to North Carolina’s agricultural sector.
“He will sometimes take initiatives against which I disagree, probably against voting,” Tillis said. “But I believe he will be someone we can trust to be honest with the reality of change and transition.”
But in the end, many Republicans opposed Regan against a broader principle.
Capito praised Regan as “absolutely the kind of person I would like to run for a federal agency.” But she and other Republicans voted against him out of protest over Biden’s environmental agenda and out of concern that McCarthy, who serves as the White House’s domestic climate tsar, would act as a shadow head of the EPA, Regan denied.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Wednesday that Regan has a lot of experience.
“The problem is what he wants to do with it,” McConnell said. “He and the administration are clearly willing to put that experience behind the same left-wing policies that have crushed jobs and prosperity in states like Kentucky throughout the Obama administration.”
McCabe, Regan’s prospective deputy, made it through her March 3 confirmation hearing and could get a committee vote soon. Republicans have criticized her work in the Obama administration in the past, particularly her involvement in setting up the government’s power station, which has raised questions about how much dual support she could eventually get.