Administrator Gina McCarthy’s Environmental Protection Agency is ready to meet with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, just as soon as they’re contacted, she said Monday during a luncheon at the National Press Club. “I’m looking forward to a smooth transition and getting folks in here so they can see the breadth of the work in the agency and how well we’re doing our job,” she said, confirming that the agency has not yet been contacted by Trump’s transition team.
Trump made his intentions for the EPA’s existing regulation clear in a Monday night video, outlining his plan for his first 100 days in office. “I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs,” Trump said. “That’s what we want, that’s what we’ve been waiting for.”
Trump has tapped Myron Ebell to oversee the transition of the EPA under the new administration. Ebell leads the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and chairs the “Cooler Heads Coalition,” which describes itself as an “informal and ad-hoc group focused on dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis.”
Throughout his campaign Trump took aim at the EPA, saying he would cut the climate change focus that has developed during the Obama administration. He has pledged to deregulate the energy industry, decrying rules such as the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants. Ebell shares a desire to dump the Clean Power Plan, which he has said is illegal.
While he hasn’t been in contact with the EPA, Trump has apparently been in contact with West Virginia’s newly elected Governor Jim Justice. According to a release from Justice, Trump and he spoke via phone Saturday to discuss reviving the coal industry. “President-elect Trump made it clear that he won’t forget about West Virginia when it comes to our nation’s energy policies. I will work closely with the President-elect and his administration on clean coal technology, rolling back the job-killing EPA regulations on coal, and growing West Virginia’s other job opportunities,” Justice said in the release.
Regardless, McCarthy put on a brave face, stating that she is proud of the work her agency has done. “I am very confident in the work we’ve done,” she said. “There has been, not progress through executive orders, but executive authorities. I mentioned the clean air act, and we have taken a lot of steps moving forward, I think they’re sound reasonable steps.”
Currently, the agency is working to ensure an easy transition to the new administration, McCarthy said. “My job right now is to do a smooth transition, that’s what the president has told us, that is my commitment. We’ll do that, we’ll tell people what’s going on in the agency,” she said, later adding that the agency’s employees “are doing fine. Most of them have been through transitions before they are working with one another just continuing to hunker down and do their job. They’re pretty confident that the mission of EPA is a good one and it will be enduring, and they will be able to continue to do the work of the agency.”
McCarthy isn’t the only one waiting for a call from Trump’s team. U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing told reporters last week during the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that his team was also waiting to be contacted by Trump. “We are not yet in touch with the transition team. As I noted, they have not yet been named for our agency. We’re waiting to talk with them. I anticipate that will happen soon after I return to Washington,” Pershing said during a Nov. 14 press briefing. No update has been provided since that time.
