Michael Regan, tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, assured Republican senators he doesn’t view regulation as the sole method of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet President Biden’s climate promises.
Regan, during his nomination hearing Wednesday, said the EPA would move “with a sense of urgency on climate change” and that he supported Biden’s climate agenda, which he touted as “aggressive” and “ambitious” but separate from the liberal Green New Deal.
Nonetheless, Regan, who serves as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, sought to assure Republican senators that he wouldn’t use emissions mandates as a sledgehammer that would crush jobs in energy-producing states. Republicans largely responded positively to their exchanges with Regan, suggesting he could face an easier path to confirmation.
“I do believe that regulation is not the sole answer,” Regan said during an exchange with Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun.
During his tenure in North Carolina, Regan said, he has worked to craft regulations that are “flexible enough” to allow for technological innovation. However, he cautioned that it is difficult for environmental agencies such as the EPA to support companies with technical expertise if budgets are slashed.
Republican senators, during their questions to Regan, lambasted the climate change executive actions Biden has taken in his first couple of weeks, especially the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, which energy-state lawmakers such as outgoing Committee on Environment and Public Works Chairman Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska said will kill thousands of jobs.
Sullivan, in perhaps the most heated exchange in a generally genial hearing, pressed Regan on Biden’s decision to cancel the pipeline and halt oil and gas leasing on federal lands. The Alaska senator criticized others on Biden’s team, including Energy Secretary nominee Jennifer Granholm and special climate envoy John Kerry, for comments that jobs would be “sacrificed” and workers would be able to switch easily to clean-energy jobs.
“This is my whole problem. This is why we want to talk to the president,” Sullivan said, adding Biden is putting forward a strategy that would lower U.S. energy production. “The only replacement is no jobs in this sector and importing more oil and gas from countries like Russia and Venezuela.”
Regan, in response, said he believes many of the skill sets of energy workers in Alaska and other states “can move quickly” to jobs securing methane leaks from oil and gas pipelines, building out water infrastructure, or modernizing the power grid.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to kill jobs,” Regan said. “I think it’s a good idea to ensure we’re transitioning the economy toward where we know the jobs will be.”
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the incoming top Republican on the committee, also pressed Regan whether he would answer to Biden’s climate “czars” Kerry and Gina McCarthy, who Capito said don’t have any accountability to Congress.
Regan said he has spoken with McCarthy, Biden’s national climate adviser and a former EPA administrator, about their roles, and he assured Capito he would answer directly to Biden and would be accountable for all EPA policies.
