New EPA chief: Climate controls will help economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s top environmental official wasted no time Tuesday taking on opponents of the administration’s plan to crack down on global warming pollution.

In her first speech as the head of EPA, Gina McCarthy told an audience gathered at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass., that curbing climate-altering pollution will spark business innovation, grow jobs and strengthen the economy. The message was classic Obama, who has long said that the environment and the economy aren’t in conflict and has sold ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse gases as a means to jumpstart a clean energy economy.