Administration Maintaining Focus on GHGs, EPA Chief Gina McCarthy Says
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency and the Obama administration as a whole will continue to emphasize their campaign against climate change from carbon emissions, even if all aspects of useful technologies are not known at present.
Speaking at a July 7 press conference here, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions is so important an issue that government action cannot wait until everything is known about it.
“We have to get started,” said McCarthy, the EPA chief since 2013, adding that her agency must focus on the issue even if personnel do not know all of the technology that will be used.
Failure to act, she said, would be “shortsighted and disappointing.”
“We can save billions of dollars and many lives if we act now. We will lose billions and human lives if we fail to act,” she said at an event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
McCarthy reminded reporters and editors that trucking is part of the regulatory schedule. On June 19, EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unveiled Phase 2 of their regulations on heavy- and medium-duty truck emissions for greenhouse gases.
A final version of the Phase 2 proposal is expected next spring.
In addition to large trucks, McCarthy said EPA also is regulating cars and light vehicles, aircraft and power plants. The administration also is working on bilateral agreements with other nations and a large-scale summit among many nations in Paris at the end of this year.
