SENATE CONFIRMS MCCARTHY AS EPA ADMINISTRATOR

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
7/19/13

The Senate confirmed Gina McCarthy as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency late this week, more than four months after President Barack Obama had nominated the veteran air quality official for the position. The upper chamber voted 59-40 in favor of McCarthy July 18, days after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) forged a deal with Senate Republicans ending a partisan stalemate related to executive branch nominations that had threatened to bring all action in the Senate to a halt.

This week’s vote brought an end to months of debate surrounding the trajectory of the EPA, which Republicans said had entered a territory of constant regulatory overreach as it sought to move forward on the President’s climate agenda. Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had peppered McCarthy with more than 1,000 written inquiries following her nomination hearing in April and later boycotted the panel’s initial vote on her nomination. McCarthy’s path to confirmation suddenly opened up last week when Sen. David Vitter, the ranking member on EPW, announced he would not filibuster McCarthy’s nomination after he said EPA had adequately addressed a handful of concerns he had related to the agency’s transparency.

McCarthy’s confirmation now allows the White House to move forward full throttle on its pursuit of a plan to limit climate change while entirely bypassing Congress. In the coming years, EPA will lead the charge in finalizing carbon standards for new power plants and promulgating guidance for states to limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, which generate roughly 40 percent of the country’s carbon emissions. However, the fight remains far from over. Coal country lawmakers this week vowed to step up their fight against EPA. “By nominating Gina McCarthy to serve at the helm of President Obama’s overreaching EPA, he has essentially promoted his lieutenant in the war on coal to be commanding general. The President’s war on coal is a war on Kentucky jobs and I will fight him every step of the way,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said July 18 following McCarthy’s confirmation.