The U.S. Senate confirmed Gina McCarthy as the new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 18 by a 59-40 vote. On EPA’s regulatory agenda are new rules that would limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power plants, control hydraulic fracturing (natural gas extraction) and the disposal of coal combustion residuals, and reduce stormwater runoff from developed sites, among many others.
Two weeks after McCarthy’s confirmation, the House began its appropriations markup with a bill that would cut EPA’s FY 2014 budget by roughly a third, or $4 billion, and limit EPA action on several rulemakings. The bill would also affect more popular programs such as brownfields grants (which would be eliminated entirely) and clean water state revolving funds, which would be cut by $1.2 billion, leaving a mere $250 million available. Some budget cuts have long been anticipated. Even before McCarthy’s confirmation, the White House Office of Management and Budget had circulated a memorandum informing EPA to prepare for an additional five to 10 percent cut in funding for FY 2015 in its budget plan.
Following are some of the biggest and most contentious issues McCarthy will face:
1) How to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. So far, EPA has set GHG emissions limits for power plants that have yet to be built. EPA has now turned its attention to existing power plants. EPA will also need to consider how best to regulate carbon-dioxide from other stationary sources, including oil and gas refineries and cement kilns.
2) How to control methane leaks from natural-gas infrastructure. The process of fracking and other new techniques to drill for (and transport) natural gas can produce methane leaks. Fracking under scrutiny and EPA is being urged to tighten restrictions on methane emissions (a GHG) in the coming years.
3) How to deal with the plethora of environmental rules that have been on hold for some time. There are a whole bunch of regulations that are on the current regulatory agenda. These include tighter national standards on ground-level ozone pollution (smog), interstate air-pollution controls for power plants, and new rules for low-sulfur gasoline. Also on the list are regulations for the management and disposal of coal-ash waste from power plants and new first-time performance standards to control runoff from newly developed and re-developed completed sites and the potential for expansion of EPA’s Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting program to commercial and public buildings.
At her first public address on Tuesday and in her video message to EPA staff, Administrator McCarthy called for pragmatic solutions to environmental challenges and signaled her support and determination to follow through on such issues as climate change.
McCarthy has spent the last four years as the Assistant Administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation. During which time, EPA finalized several significant air rules, including the boiler MACT (maximum available control technology) rule and greenhouse gas emissions standards for mobile sources. Prior to the EPA, McCarthy served as the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Several sources have reported her successful work with Republican governors in both Massachusetts and Connecticut.
AGC worked with McCarthy when she served as the Assistant Administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation at EPA. In fact, at her request, AGC is still pleased to support EPA’s “clean diesel” initiative, which encourages and facilitates but does not require contractors to reduce emissions from their existing fleets of diesel equipment. Over the years, AGC worked with her team (1) to identify appropriate incentives for contractors voluntarily to retrofit their equipment, (2) to make federal funding available to contractors interested in reducing their emissions, and (3) to help AGC chapters channel the available funding to their AGC members. In the future, AGC expects and intends to maintain its straightforward and candid relationship with Gina McCarthy in what will now be a much larger effort to encourage her and her team to weigh the costs as well as the benefits of EPA’s decisions.
The 136-day nomination process leading up to her confirmation was the longest for any prior administrator for the agency, in part because of concerns over the transparency of EPA regulatory process, namely a practice called “sue and settle”. Many of the environmental rules that are in the pipeline over the next several years are on EPA’s regulatory agenda because of court-ordered settlement agreements. (See Observer article, June 2013.)