Joe Biden has assembled negotiators and fighters to lead a climate team that will ask to remake and clean up transportation systems and power plants, as quickly as politically possible.
The people chosen by the president-elect of the United States have experience for the tough task of making climate reform of the American economy, but they also intended to calm skeptics that the plan could leave behind more low-income and minority working communities. affected by fossil fuel pollution and climate change.
Progressives, energy lobbyists, environmental groups and auto industry workers on Wednesday celebrated Biden’s decision to appoint popular former Mayor Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation. He was expected to nominate former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as Secretary of Energy and former Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Gina McCarthy as leader of national climate efforts, two appointments that also received applause. widespread.
Along with officials from EPA and the Department of the Interior, who have yet to be appointed, Buttigieg, Granholm and McCarthy will be part of an effort to rapidly establish and develop technology to transform America’s transportation and electrical grids, in a transition from oil and bastard to greater dependence on solar, wind and other renewable energy.
Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico is considered a favorite for the Interior, and she garnered strong support Wednesday from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Biden has not announced her decision. If elected, Haaland would be the first Native American to serve as a secretary to the government.
Biden has promised that containing the impact of climate change will be one of his priorities, and presented an ambitious plan to reduce net greenhouse emissions to zero by 2050. The plan includes an immediate return to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the promise that American power plants will stop their environmentally harmful emissions by 2035.
As Governor of Michigan, Granholm helped mediate with auto workers to accept a shift to producing more electric vehicles. That will be one of the main clean energy efforts the government will pursue within the $ 2 trillion climate plan announced by Biden. The project will find obstacles in the Republican congressmen and internal fights on which points to apply first.
As the EPA’s director during the Barack Obama administration, McCarthy lobbied for landmark greenhouse pollution reduction standards. In his new position, which requires no Senate confirmation, McCarthy will oversee a broad multi-agency effort to combat climate change from the federal government.
She will be the national counterpart of former Secretary of State John Kerry, who will serve as special envoy on climate.
On the other hand, criticism from progressives appears to have undermined the options of Mary Nichols, who is responsible for regulating clean air in California and who previously seemed the almost certain option to lead the EPA. More than 70 groups signed a letter claiming that Nichols did not do enough to help low-income, black, Hispanic, and other minority communities, who live disproportionately along polluting highways, factories and refineries.
Her “dismal record in fighting environmental racism” makes her unfit to lead the EPA, according to groups led by the California Environmental Justice Alliance in a letter to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
The criticism opened the process to half a dozen new candidates, including former EPA officials Michael Regan of North Carolina and Heather McTeer Toney of Mississippi, as well as clean air legal expert Richard Revesz.
Just talking about the impact on communities of color is good, said Michael Mendez, professor of environmental policy at the University of California, Irvine and author of the book “Climate Change from the Streets.”
“I have never seen these conversations” while an elected president was forming his government, Mendez said.
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Knickmeyer reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press reporters Tom Krisher in Detroit and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California contributed to this report.
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