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National
Smart Growth Could Play Larger Role in Fight Against Climate Change
In another step to strengthen EPA climate research, cooperative reach and regulatory oversight, President Obama announced the imminent nomination of Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Gina McCarthy as EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, with a White House press release noting that before taking over the Connecticut DEP in 2004, ''she served as the Deputy Secretary of Operations for the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development, a 'Super Secretariat' that coordinates policies and programs of that state's environmental, transportation, energy and housing agencies.''
Coming two days after EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson proposed the agency's first comprehensive system ''for reporting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases'' from major sources nationwide, the presidential choice of Commissioner McCarthy as the EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation is expected to help expand the smart growth role in the fight against climate change.
''She understands not only all the issues involved in air pollution and global warming but has seen them from a state perspective as well as a national one,'' Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell told E & E's ClimateWire reporter Robin Bravender.
If confirmed in her EPA job, the reporter observes, she will immediately face the task of reviewing ''a series of controversial Bush-era clean air regulations that have been sent back to the agency by federal courts,'' while moving to complete mercury and clean-air interstate regulations, to curb power plant pollutants.
''Obviously, there's going to be a huge amount on her plate,'' commented the Clean Air Watch president. ''In all these cases, she is very familiar with them because Connecticut has been on the receiving end of a lot of emissions from other areas.''
In related news, just days before the White House named her DEP Commissioner as a prospective EPA Assistant Administrator, Connecticut Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell announced that infrastructure projects funded through the nearly $450 million from the state's $3 billion share of the federal stimulus (ARRA) money will have to contain a 25 percent 'green' component.
This stipulation, said her press release, ''goes beyond federal mandates and is designed to bolster Connecticut's emerging green collar workforce'' and conserve energy and natural resources.
See the White House press release or Governor Rell's press release.
3/12/2009
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