Biden picks deal-makers, fighters for climate, energy team
by Ellen Knickmeyer And Matthew Daly, The Associated Press
Posted Dec 16, 2020 5:48 pm EDT
Last Updated Dec 16, 2020 at 5:58 pm EDT
Former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, President-elect Joe Biden s nominee to be transportation secretary, speaks as Biden looks on during a news conference at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP)
WASHINGTON Joe Biden is picking deal-makers and fighters to lead a climate team he’ll ask to remake and clean up the nation’s transportation and power-plant systems, and as fast as politically possible.
While the president-elect’s picks have the experience to do the heavy lifting required in a climate overhaul of the U.S. economy, they also seem to be reassuring skeptics that he won’t neglect the low-income, working class and minority communities hit hardest by fossil fuel pollution and climate change.
Flickr
Close Authorship
Growing up in North Richmond, California, Denny Khamphanthong didn’t think much of the siren that wailed once a month at 11 a.m. every first Wednesday. The alarm is a test of the community’s emergency warning system, which has alerted residents to numerous incidents over the years at the nearby Chevron oil refinery. One accident there a 2012 fire sent a cloud of black smoke billowing over San Francisco Bay and left thousands of local residents struggling to breathe.
Now, when Khamphanthong explains the sound to his young nieces, he sees the fear in their eyes. I forget that this isn’t normal, he says. Nor is the fact that Khamphanthong and most of his childhood friends carried inhalers. Richmond, a diverse, industrial city where housing prices and incomes have lagged behind its Bay Area neighbors, has poor air quality and some of the highest rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease in California.
Governors Wind Energy Coalition
Why Mary Nichols could lose climate clout at EPA Source: By Anne C. Mulkern, E&E News reporter • Posted: Sunday, December 13, 2020
Mary Nichols wields momentous powers for slashing greenhouse gas emissions as the leader of California’s top climate agency. She’ll find that clout curbed if she’s named EPA administrator.
Nichols, a contender for the EPA job under President-elect Joe Biden, spent decades building a track record that looks tailor-made for helping Biden pursue his aggressive goal of zeroing out carbon pollution by 2050.
She’s forced businesses to cut emissions, struck deals with car company executives on mileage standards and spurred production of more green alternatives to fossil fuels all as chair of the California Air Resources Board, an agency that’s strikingly similar to EPA.
Environmental Justice Leaders Look for a Focus on Disproportionately Impacted Communities of Color
They want Trump’s rollbacks rescinded and renewed emphasis on justice and equity via enforcement of federal law, from the Clean Air Act to FEMA recovery aid.
December 13, 2020 Black towns matter painted on the street in Barrett, Texas, a historically Black town outside Houston adjacent to the French Limited Superfund hazardous waste site. After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, residents of Barrett worried that flooding had spread contaminants from the site into the town. Credit: Spike Johnson
Related
Share this article
For environmental justice advocates who have spent decades fighting to protect communities from polluters, the new year cannot come too soon. After four years of the Trump administration shredding the Environmental Protection Agency into “little tidbits,” as President Donald Trump put it during his first campaign, change is in the air.
(CPUC)
Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed California Public Utilities Commissioner Liane Randolph to replace the outgoing Mary Nichols, long the center of gravity for the state’s climate policy, as the chair of the California Air Resources Board.
Nichols amassed a considerable amount of power in California as the state’s top air regulator, shepherding through sweeping regulations on power plants, implementing cap-and-trade legislation, and piloting pollution control measures that are some of the strongest in the nation.
A deft political operative, Nichols, who is retiring at the end of the month, was also on the front lines of the state’s policy battles with the Trump administration over the environment and climate change, most notably in her fostering an agreement between the state and five major automakers to follow California’s stricter clean-car rules after Trump sought to relax federal standards. She is reportedly President-elect Joe Biden’s top pick to be the next hea