WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency finally has a replacement for New Orleans native Lisa Jackson. The Senate Thursday voted 59-40 to confirm Gina McCarthy, a top deputy at EPA under Jackson and previously an environmental administrator under Republican governors in Connecticut and Massachusetts. McCarthy was nominated in April by President Barack Obama, but her nomination was blocked by...
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency finally has a replacement for New Orleans native Lisa Jackson. The Senate Thursday voted 59-40 to confirm Gina McCarthy, a top deputy at EPA under Jackson and previously an environmental administrator under Republican governors in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
McCarthy was nominated in April by President Barack Obama, but her nomination was blocked by Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee led by Sen. David Vitter, R-La. In May, Vitter led a GOP boycott of a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meeting, blocking a scheduled vote on McCarthy.
But last week, Vitter announced what he called significant concessions from McCarthy and other EPA officials in beginning to transform what he termed a historically secretive agency into something more transparent. Vitter said he would no longer filibuster her nomination.
Vitter took the Senate floor twice over the last two days to say he will continue his vehement opposition to Obama environmental policies on carbon emissions, regulation of coal-fired power plants and other issues.
"I do not agree with Barack Obama or Gina McCarthy's positions on most of the big issues at EPA, including the war on coal," Vitter said. "I do not agree with their actions that are costing millions of jobs around the country, that are increasing significantly the price of American energy. But I am not going to be able to fix that given the last election. President Obama was re-elected."
Vitter said McCarthy and EPA made important concessions over the last several weeks on five demands he and other Republicans had made.
"I did not think we would get nearly as far as we did in terms of commitments out of EPA," Vitter said. "But since we did, since we made all of that substantive progress, I am certainly going to honor that commitment with regard to the cloture vote."
During two months of negotiations, Vitter won an agreement from EPA to release data behind two epidemiological studies used to justify several EPA air quality rules that some industries considered overreach. The agency has long resisted releasing the information, expressing privacy concerns.
Vitter said the EPA has also agreed to retrain the agency's 17,000 employers on records maintenance and the use of personal e-mail accounts -- areas in which he contends the agency so mismanaged as to keep key information from the public.
The EPA also agreed to a compromise on Vitter's insistence that the agency set up a protocol to better consider the economic impacts of EPA's rule-making, and to post information on regulatory petitions and lawsuits. Vitter contends that some lawsuits filed by environmental groups resulted in settlements that were hard on industry and not justified by cost-benefit analysis.
Still, Vitter joined most Republicans in voting against her nomination. "The Obama EPA has acted to the detriment of the American people, jobs, the economy, our future. It's for these reasons that I continue to have profound concerns with the direction at EPA. The present nominee is not an outsider. She is not new to his. She does not have no involvement. She's been at the very heart of many of these matters as head of the Clean Air."
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., joined all Democrats in voting for McCarthy, though she insisted it was not an endorsement for EPA.
"My vote for Gina McCarthy is exactly that: It's a vote for her, not the agency," Landrieu said. "The EPA has been downright hostile to industries in our state. The agency has a long and troubled history of overreaching and stepping outside of its bounds without thought to the economic consequences of its actions. The Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure rule would vastly increase Louisiana farmers' operating costs without any tangible environmental benefit. Another example is the Boiler MACT, which has caused uncertainty and consternation for our pulp and paper industry."
"Yet another one is the New Source Performance Standard that threatens our electric producers, especially those serving our rural co-ops...I will continue to work my colleagues to rein in the EPA."
Others were a lot more enthusiastic.
"I am so pleased that the full Senate has confirmed Gina McCarthy to be EPA Administrator, because she is the right person for the job," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "With more than three decades of public service experience, Gina has a deep understanding that public health and a growing economy depend on clean air and clean water. Gina McCarthy has worked for five Republican Governors and a Democratic President, and she will lead EPA in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people."
Environmentalists hailed her confirmation.
"The Senate's confirmation of Gina McCarthy as head of the Environmental Protection Agency is a welcome development and a signal that Congress and the President are willing to get serious about the Agency's role in protecting the health of all Americans and the affects of climate change on the environment," said Robert Verchick, a former EPA official and environmental law professor at Loyola University.
"It won't be easy. Lawmakers seem divided on nearly every issue in this debate. In the past EPA's efforts to protect the environment and public health and safety have sometimes been delayed by the White House's own Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Cutting through such bureaucracy should be on the short list of the new administrator's priorities."