President-elect Joe Biden plans to select Michael Regan to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), picking a longtime EPA insider to lead the agency, according to multiple Thursday reports.
Regan, 44, is currently the secretary for North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the state’s EPA equivalent. He would be the first Black man to hold the role of EPA chief.
He previously worked for the EPA under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations before heading to the Environmental Defense Fund as its southeast regional director.
Picking Regan suggests Biden is eager to have a longtime expert at an agency responsible for the bulk of the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks.
“The Biden team was very impressed with his tenure leading North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality, how he held polluters accountable, including by reaching the largest coal ash cleanup settlement in US history,” a source familiar with the transition team’s thinking told The Hill.
“And the team was also impressed by how he worked to give communities disproportionately harmed by environmental injustices a larger voice in state environmental and natural resource decisions.”
Biden has pledged to make environmental justice and the disproportionate burden of pollution faced by communities of color a cornerstone of his environmental agenda alongside cutting emissions and boosting renewable energy.
Regan's previous work aligns with many of Biden’s climate goals. Regan’s previous time at the EPA centered on air and energy programs. And in North Carolina, he formed an Environmental Justice and Equity Board for DEQ and helped craft the state’s plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2050...
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