EPA head Regan, who championed environmental justice, to leave office Dec. 31

Source: AP

Updated 3:20 PM EST, December 20, 2024


WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Regan, who championed environmental justice as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, will leave the agency Dec. 31, three weeks before the end of President Joe Biden’s term. In a letter Friday to agency employees, Regan said he was proud of the EPA’s work to confront climate change, restrict air and water pollution and spend tens of billions of dollars under the administration’s landmark climate law to spur clean energy development.

Those efforts slashed harmful greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants that endanger communities, “delivering significant economic and public health benefits in areas long overburdened by pollution,″ he said. The agency also created thousands of jobs and lowered costs for families, he said.

Regan, the first Black man to head the EPA, noted that the agency elevated the role of environmental justice under his watch and “placed it at the center of our decision-making.’' Regan went on a “Journey to Justice” tour from Mississippi to Texas in 2021. The five-day trip from Jackson, Miss., to New Orleans and Houston highlighted low-income, mostly minority communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.

Regan, 48, a North Carolina native who headed the state Department of Environmental Quality before taking over at EPA in early 2021, said he will return to the state with his family.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/epa-administrator-regan-biden-environmental-justice-climate-14f686a6c5e1122f7903a350b8f9c8ad