Climate chief Gina McCarthy leaving White House as John Podesta returns

 Gina McCarthy, President Joe Biden’s top domestic climate adviser, will leave the White House on Sept. 16, just weeks after Congress passed the largest-ever U.S. law to tackle climate change — legislation that her office helped craft.

McCarthy’s exit will leave Biden without one of his climate policy heavyweights as his administration moves on to the next phase of its climate fight: developing executive actions and regulations that can survive the partisan power shifts and Supreme Court scrutiny that have derailed previous Democratic climate plans.

...McCarthy, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency for four years during the Obama administration, had long been at the national forefront in developing strategies to reduce climate change. But those efforts also drew the ire of advocates for low-income and minority communities who complained that her office put climate action above their calls to address the environmental threats that plague those groups...MORE