Regan was confirmed by a 66-34 vote, with 16 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in support. He will be the first black man to lead the EPA, and the second African American to do so, after Obama’s first administrator, Lisa Jackson.
In North Carolina, he received applause from environmentalists for blocking an extension of the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline and for closing a successful deal with Duke Energy to clean up lakes containing coal ash from state power plants. He also won an important deal to address the contamination of toxic PFAS chemicals “forever” with manufacturer Chemours.
As an EPA administrator, Regan will lead an agency that will play an important regulatory role in President Joe Biden’s aggressive climate agenda. At the top of its to-do list will be drafting a new climate rule for power plants, now that a federal court has overturned the Trump EPA version, strengthening exhaust emission limits for cars and light trucks and reducing methane leaks from the oil and gas sector.
The plant’s rule that should contain carbon dioxide emissions will be a key factor in Biden’s plans to eliminate greenhouse gases from the country’s electricity grid by 2035 and put the country on track to achieve zero net emissions by the middle of the century. .
The Biden administration nominee for Regan’s deputy, Janet McCabe, has a deep history of drafting aggressive environmental regulations, including the Obama administration’s version of the plant rule, which the Supreme Court blocked before it could take effect. Other senior Obama officials also returned to the agency to work under Regan, including Dan Utech as chief of staff and Joe Goffman at the office responsible for air pollution regulations.
While Regan may find support from Republican lawmakers and state officials on issues such as PFAS cleanup and the Superfund program that deals with contaminated sites, it is unlikely that he will be able to balance Biden’s plans for aggressive climate action with Republican opposition to the rules they say . threaten the fossil fuel industries of their states.
In the meantime, Regan will need to resolve a number of administrative issues at the agency. The EPA has dismissed hundreds of experts in the past four years, although many states have also reduced their environmental regulators. And the Trump administration’s repeated efforts to cut the EPA budget, along with its deregulation agenda and controversial scientific policies, have left morale low among many ordinary workers.
Regan was able to avoid some of the Republican criticism directed at other Biden officials who held key positions in the Obama administration, including White House climate advisers Gina McCarthy and John Kerry, by avoiding party anger over old wounds. He also skilfully navigated the confirmation process, avoiding taking positions on most policies, promising to hear from all sides before deciding on key regulations, and promising to visit so many red states that Environment and Public Works ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (RW.Va.) joked that Regan “may be visiting the entire country”.
His Republican senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, helped boost his nomination by introducing him to his audience and improving his reputation for reaching North Carolina’s agricultural sector.
“He sometimes takes initiatives that I disagree with, probably voting against,” said Tillis. “But I believe he will be someone we can trust to be fair to the reality of change and transition.”
Ultimately, however, many Republicans were opposed to Regan on broader principles.
Capito praised Regan as “absolutely the type of person I would like to see leading a federal agency”. But she and other Republicans voted against him in protest against Biden’s environmental agenda and out of concern that McCarthy, serving as the domestic climate czar at the White House, acts as an EPA shadow chief, an accusation that Regan denied.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged on Wednesday that Regan has a lot of experience.
“The problem is what he is about to do with it,” said McConnell. “He and the government are clearly prepared to put that experience behind the same far-left policies that have destroyed jobs and prosperity in states like Kentucky throughout the Obama administration.”
McCabe, the possible deputy for Regan, passed her confirmation hearing on March 3 and may soon get a vote from the committee. Republicans criticized her previous work in the Obama administration, especially her involvement in shaping the government of that government’s power plant, raising questions about how much bipartisan support it can obtain.