McCarthy, who currently serves as head of the Natural Resources Defense Council, will lead Biden’s newly formed Office of Domestic Climate Policy, a source said. McCarthy was the administrator of the EPA under President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017.
The source added that Ali Zaidi, currently deputy secretary of energy and environment in New York, will serve as the White House’s deputy climate coordinator. Zaidi held various climate-focused roles in the Office of Management and Budget and the White House Domestic Policy Council during the Obama administration.
The move is the latest example of Biden’s prioritization of the climate crisis. McCarthy joins former Secretary of State John Kerry, who named the president-elect his special presidential envoy for climate, as top Biden officials tasked with addressing the issue. Kerry will be a cabinet official in Biden’s administration and will serve on the National Security Council. Kerry is expected to focus on the foreign policy and international aspects of the climate crisis, while McCarthy is expected to focus on domestic issues.
It is also another symbolic rebuke to President Donald Trump and his policies. Months after Trump was sworn in, Trump announced that the US would be leaving the Paris climate accord and then repealed a major ordinance backing the US pledge in the landmark 2015 international agreement. That ordinance – the Clean Power Plan – was written by McCarthy when she was serving as the EPA administrator along with others in the Obama administration. It enacted the very first federal regulations to limit carbon dioxide from power plants.
Trump has repeatedly denied the scientific reality of the climate crisis, and during his four years in office, his administration has systematically reversed environmental policy.
CNN previously reported that a White House climate director was expected to work on domestic issues that would be on a par with Kerry, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Kerry and McCarthy were both on the Biden-Sanders unit task force focused on climate.
McCarthy was originally appointed by Obama as an Assistant Administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation in 2009. Before serving in the Obama administration, McCarthy was the commissioner of Connecticut’s environmental protection department. She has a career spanning decades at the state and local levels, working on environmental issues.
Since January, McCarthy has been the president and chief executive officer of the NRDC, a non-profit international environmental activist group. In that role, McCarthy has led more than 700 lawyers, scientists, policy experts and attorneys, according to the organization.
Biden has proposed an ambitious plan to spend $ 2 trillion on clean energy projects over four years and end carbon emissions from power plants by 2035. which will be decided in two second elections in Georgia on January 5. Regardless of which party controls the senate, Biden has pledged on day one to sign a series of climate-executive orders that do not require congressional approval. Biden has also pledged to rejoin the Paris climate agreement on his first day.
This story has been updated with additional information on McCarthy and Biden’s climate plan.