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US President-elect Joe Biden announced Saturday the team of people who will address environmental and energy issues when they take office in the White House. They are joined by former Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been elected as Special Envoy for Climate, a new and purpose-built office. In announcing the new appointments, Biden reiterated that his administration will make a special effort to address climate change. Along with the coronavirus pandemic, economic recovery, and racial equality, climate change has been singled out as one of the top priorities for the next US government and Biden has called it “the existential threat of our time.”
“We are in the middle of a crisis,” Biden said. “We need a national response combined with COVID-19, but we also need a national response combined with climate change. We must face it with the urgency it requires, as we would in any other national emergency.” The future president also said that his administration will begin to address these issues from the first day of the new presidency, “because we have no time to lose.”
– Read also: Biden’s first government appointments
One of the most important appointments announced on Saturday is that of Gina McCarthy, who in the second presidency of Barack Obama had been the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Biden has put her in charge of a new office in the White House, the Office of Climate Policy. He has already elected his deputy, Ali Zaidi, currently Deputy Secretary of the New York State Department of Energy and Environment.
Gina McCarthy, December 19, 2020 (Joshua Roberts / Getty Images)
As head of the EPA, on the other hand, Biden has chosen Michael Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality since 2017: he will be the second African-American person to lead the agency, after Lisa P. Jackson, who did. during Obama’s first term. Regan has made a name for himself for his commitment to reclaiming highly polluted areas of the industry. His appointment, unlike that of McCarthy and Zaidi, however, is not yet final because it will have to be approved by a vote of the Senate.
Michael Regan, December 19, 2020 (Joshua Roberts / Getty Images)
Other appointments that will have to vote in the Senate are those of Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan, whom Biden has chosen as the new Secretary of Energy (that is, as head of the Department of Energy), and that of Brenda Mallory, a ‘A highly experienced environmental attorney who will chair the Council on Environmental Quality, a division of the Executive Office of the President, which is the group of people who will work most closely with Biden.
The Senate will also have to vote on the appointment of Deb Haaland, elected as secretary of internal affairs, that is, head of the department of the US government that deals with the territory and the natural environment (and that, therefore , does not have the same functions as the Italian Ministry of the Interior). ). Haaland is a Representative from New Mexico and a Native American: if her nomination is confirmed by the Senate, she will be the first Native American person to head one of the federal departments. His appointment has a high symbolic value also because it was the Department of Internal Affairs that decided the forced displacements of Native American communities.
Deb Haaland, December 19, 2020 (Joshua Roberts / Getty Images)
Biden has already said that he intends to restore all environmental protection regulations established by Barack Obama and canceled by Donald Trump. The outgoing president, in fact, at the beginning of his term, had annulled about a hundred measures that imposed rules on the use and extraction of fossil fuels, especially coal, and established strict limits on emissions in many sectors. Trump had also approved exemptions and preferential treatments for the construction of new oil and gas pipelines and had encouraged the exploration of new fields. It had also removed “national monument” status from some parks and reserves to encourage exploration and exploitation of deposits – Biden intends to restore it.
The other important thing Biden wants to do is bring the United States back into the Paris Climate Agreement, which it officially exited on November 5, again at Trump’s urging.
– Read also: Biden is electing many women to his administration
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