The former EPA head is now Biden’s domestic climate czar, on a mission to harness the federal government’s might to stop climate change
Excerpt from this interview with Gina McCarthy, the White House National Climate Advisor, from Rolling Stone:
How is Biden’s “whole-of-government” approach different from Obama’s approach?
President Obama pulled together a plan, but that plan had discrete tasks. It did not bring it all together under one task force with one overwhelming theme, which is to use every tool at your disposal in every agency and to start thinking about climate change in every decision you make. President Biden is all about using climate change not to address just the planetary problem, but really to use it as a way to rebuild the economy. So this is about growing jobs. And [another] major component here is to look at how we can deliver on his environmental justice promises.
I really think that this is a more sophisticated approach than President Obama used. We’re using the creativity and the energy that’s been pent up across the agencies and unleashing that. Most recently, we had a release of new research dollars, $100 million from DOE [Department of Energy] that’s going to clean energy. We had a release of a $180 million from DOT [Department of Transportation] that’s going to look at new low-carbon-energy solutions. So there’s great things happening that may have been pent up for a while, but now you’re going to get lots of support for those ideas.
In regard to Trump’s assault on environmental protections, which of his rollbacks are you most concerned about, and how hard are they going to be to undo?
We have a list — actually, that was in the president’s first executive order — that has more than 100 of the rollbacks that we have to take a look at. Some of the ones early out of the gate are going to be methane. There was a rule [under Obama] that required methane to be captured from leaks in the oil-and-gas sector. We’re going to revisit that, reestablishing that rule.
We’ve already told people that 2035 is the time window for cleaning up the power sector. And so we’re having conversations with the utility sector, and that’s going to involve not just standard-setting but also making sure that we look at transmission bottlenecks or other opportunities to make that transition to clean energy, which the utilities are not arguing about. They’re just looking for help to see how they can make that [2035] window work.
And the third is we’re looking at the auto sector. We’re going to start talking to car manufacturers about how quickly we can get to zero [emissions] in the car fleet.
You’ve said before that in terms of possible other policies to implement, levers to pull, that nothing is off the table. How do you see a carbon tax potentially fitting into the administration’s climate policy toolkit?
Well, to establish a carbon tax, it’s going to take congressional action. And so I think it’s really important that those issues be talked about in Congress, and as legislation comes up, we will certainly be interested in weighing in. But for our purposes and mine certainly, I’m looking at executive authority. I am not in a congressional authority to actually be moving that forward. But I’m certain that the president isn’t interested in taking anything off the table.
