MCCARTHY: TIME TO MOVE BEYOND ‘FALSE CHOICE’ NARRATIVE ON CLIMATE

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
8/2/13

Newly confirmed head of the Environmental Protection Agency Gina McCarthy focused her inaugural public address as Administrator this week on countering the agency’s critics who say that upcoming climate regulations will hamstring job creation and economic growth. Less than two weeks after making it through a bruising nomination fight in the Senate—she waited a record 136 days to be confirmed—McCarthy used a July 30 speech at Harvard Law School to argue that mitigating climate change can jump-start the economy, an argument reminiscent of rhetoric used by President Obama during his 2008 campaign and first year in the White House. “For too long we’ve been focused on that false choice. It’s not a choice between the health of our children and the health of the economy. We have endlessly debated that choice, even in the face of 43 years of documented history that should by now have put that issue to rest,” McCarthy said. “We have to move beyond all those old discussions,” she added.

McCarthy outlined how the EPA will be front-and-center as the White House moves to implement its sweeping but controversial climate plan, and acknowledged the “challenges ahead” as the agency moves to sell the plan to Congress, industry and the public. “We have challenges that range from substance to failures to communicate, and we need to fix those. It is a pivotal moment, and it’s one we need to step up for,” she said. McCarthy said she would direct her staff at EPA to work with industry to convince companies that embracing cutting carbon pollution could help spark economic growth. “Let’s talk about this positively. Let’s approach this as an opportunity of a lifetime, because there are too many lifetimes at stake to not embrace it this way,” she said. “As more businesses think about the opportunity of climate change, and see additional public and private sector investments being leveraged to support infrastructure and clean energy, those investments, in turn, will leverage more,” McCarthy added

Some industry groups that have lobbied against the President’s climate plan were quick to say they were unimpressed by McCarthy’s remarks. “It was disappointing to hear the EPA Administrator today tell Americans to ‘stop talking about’ the job killing potential of new government regulations,” American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity President Mike Duncan said in a statement. “The truth is all Americans should be deeply concerned about government policies that put more people out of work and punish families, especially those who can least afford higher energy costs.”