A top White House environmental adviser is stepping down, President Obama announced Tuesday.
Acting Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Mike Boots will leave the Obama administration in March, the White House said. Boots, who has been with the administration six years, had headed the council since former chief Nancy Sutley left in February.
“It is no coincidence that Mike’s leadership of the Council on Environmental Quality has coincided with historic national progress on climate change and conservation,” Obama said. “His deep policy expertise and his work with mayors, governors and other local leaders have guided my actions to strengthen our nation’s infrastructure and address the threats communities face from climate change.”
The White House did not say who would replace Boots.
Former Obama administration climate czar Carol Browner said Boots had an “integral part” in crafting some of the administration’s climate policies, such as new automotive fuel-efficiency standards and proposed carbon emissions limits on power plants. The power plant rule is the most aggressive attempt by the United States to slow climate change, as it aims to curb electricity emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
“He will be missed as the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House continue to implement their aggressive climate change agenda over the next two years,” said Browner, EPA chief under President Bill Clinton who now is a senior distinguished fellow with the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
Boots also helped oversee a revised Council on Environmental Quality draft guidance on how agencies evaluate the effects their decisions, policies and projects have on greenhouse gas emissions. Coming from a background of conservation and ocean policy, he also assisted in naming new national monuments such as the expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to 490,000 acres, making it the largest protected aquatic area in the world.
