The Future of Environmental Protection

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity of attending a special event hosted by the Center for Environment and Sustainability at Wake Forest University.  Gina McCarthy, the 13th Administrator of the EPA, was the keynote speaker, addressing a packed house in Broyhill Hall, with a rousing speech, interrupted several times by standing ovations.  McCarthy led the EPA in 2015 to establish the first carbon emissions standards in the U.S. (something equivalent to the clean air standards of the Clean Air Act of 1970 which saved millions of lives). Prior to that she was advisor to 5 governors in Massachusetts, both Democrat and Republican. 

McCarthy began by offering a word of hope based on her conversations with WFU students earlier in the day.  In reflecting on the questions they asked, she said, “I am encouraged by how quickly we can get our act together in this country because of future leaders among our young people.”  This hopeful posture came in light of the vulnerabilities we are creating for ourselves with the dismantling of the EPA.  The current EPA Administrator has revealed plans to reduce the EPA budget by 65%.  This is evidently what Elon Musk and his D.O.G.E team mean by cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse.”  A 65% cut will effectively cripple the EPA.  The people tasked to make sure our water is clean and our air is safe to breathe and our soil is not contiminated with poisons is being gutted.  Inevitably, this will mean the poor, the underclass, the vulnerable in our country are going to face greater threats to their health, even while resources available to help through Medicaid and Medicare are also on the cutting blocks.  We are entering a stage that could potentially put at risk, millions of people.  McCarthy quipped, “You’re going to miss the EPA when it’s gone.” 

While politicians and pundits score easy points when they ridicule and demean those “government bureaucrats” who are the source of all this waste and fraud, the EPA, according to McCarthy, was filled with passionate, hard-working American citizens whose sole focus was on America’s public health.  They were intent on protecting Americans and saving lives.  They didn’t create onerous regulations that kept America from growing and prospering as a nation.  Since the establishment of the EPA. America has been an economic juggernaut, while at the same time creating cleaner rivers, skies and farm lands.  EPA regulations have not held America back.  They unleashed America’s manufacturing, agricultural and transportation sectors by providing reasonable, fact and science-based regulations in partnership with industry leaders.  It was all about making people’s lives better.   

My home state of North Carolina is the recipient of the valuable work of the EPA and the Inflation Reduction Act legislation, helping land the first Toyota battery manufacturing plant in the world.  Toyota is investing $13.9 billion in the Toyota Battery Manufacturing, NC in Liberty, NC, just southeast of Greensboro.  The zero emissions plant will create 5100 new well-paying jobs and begin production in 2025.  They will run 4 lines of hybrid batteries and 2 lines of EV batteries.  These are the kind of clean energy jobs and manufacturing plants resulting from reasonable, fact-based regulations that put people first and simultaneously ignite our economy. 

The 70 year old McCarthy concluded her fiery speech by calling out the current administration for going backwards in the support of democracies and being on the frontline of environmental protection as a manifestation of human rights.  She has been disturbed by the incredulity of world leaders trying to figure out what happened to America.  She said, “The U.S. has been THE world leader since WWII. The world is not used to the U.S. being the outlier, the destabilizer.”  And yet that is where we have landed in 2 short months in this current administration turning its back on democracies, environmental protection and caring for the poor.  It’s not the country I grew up in.  

I know our young people are the hope for the future of environmental protection.  I just hope we don’t destroy too many of them along the way.