WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Regan, who led the Environmental Protection Agency during President Joe Biden’s four-year term, said Friday he will leave the agency on Dec. 31, about three weeks before Biden leaves office.
In a letter to agency employees, Regan said he was proud of the EPA’s work to confront climate change, limit air and water pollution and spend tens of billions of dollars under the landmark climate law. the government to stimulate the development of clean energy.
These efforts have reduced emissions of harmful greenhouse gases and other air pollutants that endanger communities, “and are 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.
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Regan, the first Black man to lead the EPA, noted that the organization brought the role of environmental justice under his charge and “placed it at the center of our decision-making.” Regan went on a “Journey for Justice” tour from Mississippi to Texas in 2021. The five-day trip from Jackson, Miss., to New Orleans and Houston highlighted low-income communities, primarily minorities, who have been adversely affected by dozens years of industrial pollution.
Regan, 48, a North Carolina native who headed the state Department of Environmental Quality before taking the reins at EPA in early 2021, said he will return to the state with his family.
Jane Nishida, EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs, will serve as acting administrator for the final weeks of the term, Regan said. Regan’s chief of staff, Dan Utech, will serve as deputy administrator.
Regan, who worked at EPA earlier in his career, thanked Biden for appointing him to the post, adding: “Ten years ago, I could never have imagined that I would be returning to lead EPA alongside such a dedicated and dedicated staff .”
Over the past four years, the agency has made “tremendous progress to remove lead pipes from communities and protect drinking water sources for millions of people in America,” Regan wrote. “We have taken forever action against chemicals like PFAS to protect families from pollution in the products we use, the water we drink and in the backyards where our children play.”
EPA also has “reinvigorated enforcement efforts” after four years of environmental pushback under former President Donald Trump, “holding polluters accountable and ensuring they pay for cleanup of legacy pollution sites across the country,” it said Regan.
EPA has banned hazardous chemicals such as asbestos and trichloroethylene, also known as TCE, and has responded to environmental and public health emergencies across the country over the past year, including in Asheville, North Carolina and Tampa, Florida, Regan said.
The agency also hired thousands of new employees, including hundreds of scientists who left the agency during the first Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump, who appointed former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin as EPA administrator, has said he will cut environmental regulations again when he returns to office for a second term next month. Trump has also said he will target what he calls burdensome rules on power plants, factories and oil and natural gas production imposed under Biden.
Without naming Trump or Zeldin, Regan told staff that “the work continues. I have nothing but optimism and confidence in your commitment to continue protecting public health and the environment for everyone in this great country.”
