President Barack Obama is set to nominate Gina McCarthy, who currently leads the Environmental Protection Agency’s air and radiation office, to head the EPA. McCarthy has a history of speaking about heavy regulation and control to combat climate related issues.
On May 1, 2010, McCarthy gave the keynote at the Green Education Celebration at UMass Boston and said she didn't go to Washington to "sit around and wait for congressional action" and that she never has and never planned to in the future to tackle climate change.
"I love listening to Sen. Kerry. I love listening to Congressman Markey, because they talk funny and they talk real. They tell it like it is and they make things happen. I am so proud that we have them in office so they can push us to face reality that one needs to face and to move forward with legislation that is absolutely essential.
“But I will tell you that I didn’t go to Washington to sit around and wait for congressional action. Never done that before, and don’t plan to in the future. EPA’s administrator Lisa Jackson didn’t sit around so that she could look at the law and decide it was inconvenient to follow it. Or listen to the science and say, ‘You know, that might get me into trouble, so I ain’t going where the science tells me.’ What she actually said when she got there is that I’m going to listen to the law and I’m going where science is driving us, and that is why the EPA put forward just last December what we call the endangerment finding," McCarthy said.