Transcript

Gina McCarthy

I have not seen what other people are pretending, which is that clean energy is dying off. If you open your eyes and look, that's just not what's happening. I'm excited about the ability for us to move forward in a vibrant way. People may think that the Inflation Reduction Act died. I actually think it was the Tinder that made the fire roar.

Leah Stokes

This is a matter of degrees. I'm Dr. Leah Stokes

Katharine Wilkinson

and I'm Dr. Katharine Wilkinson.

Leah Stokes

It's a precarious time for climate action. Some days it can feel like the ground beneath us is shifting. Like decades of hard won progress can disappear in an instant.

Katharine Wilkinson

In the past year, the Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to policies that help build cheap, clean energy, cut pollution, and protect communities.

Leah Stokes

And as we heard in our last episode, climate progress is not the only thing the Trump administration is trying to undo. Our democracy itself is also under attack.

Katharine Wilkinson

It's easy to feel disoriented and frankly even defeated.

Leah Stokes

But the story of American climate action, it didn't start last year. It's a story that spans decades, and despite the recent setbacks, it's largely a hopeful story.

Katharine Wilkinson

So today we're zooming out, getting the bigger sweep of perspective. We're going to revisit some of the most pivotal policymaking moments of the last two decades.

Leah Stokes

To do that, we talked with someone who's been at the center of nearly all that policy change. It's Gina McCarthy who opened the episode. She served as administrator to the US Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, under President Obama. And later, she was the White House National Climate Advisor under President Biden.

Katharine Wilkinson

It feels worth saying right up here at the top that the EPA is a key player in climate action. When Congress writes an environmental law like say the Clean Air Act, the EPA is responsible for implementation by creating regulations and national standards that see that law right into reality.

Leah Stokes

And on today's episode, Gina and I look back at her career, pushing climate progress at the EPA, in the White House, and throughout the halls of power. We cover the battles she fought, the ones she lost, and where she's finding hope today.

Katharine Wilkinson

Let's dive in.

Leah Stokes

So in this episode, Gina, we're going to talk about your career and in parallel the history of American climate policy. And fortunately for us, those two things are a fairly similar story in a funny way. You've been at the heart of so much of this for so long.

Gina McCarthy

Leah, are you just telling me that I'm wicked old enough to know all these things?

Leah Stokes

Very important is what I'm trying to say, actually. If there was a major climate policy development in the last 20 years, chances are you were in the room for it. So right? Am I wrong? Am I right?

Gina McCarthy

No, no, that's probably true from the time I worked at local level to state level to White House. Yeah, that's about what it was.

Leah Stokes

Yeah, so it's not about being old. Many people are old, but not all of them are as important. That's what we're trying to say.

Gina McCarthy

Thank you, Leah.

Leah Stokes

So I want you to take us back to the beginning. How did you first get interested in climate and environmental work? What was it that drew you to this issue?

Gina McCarthy

So when I was a kid, the environment was just terrible. I remember that every day of my life. I remember the black smoke coming out of the smokestacks. I can remember all the dyes that were tossed into the water so that it was either yellow one day or green the next. And I mean, those were the days that I grew up in. And it became very clear over time that I was really attracted to these issues as something that was number one, for the most part, totally unnecessary. And secondly, the excitement of knowing that we had ways of fixing this stuff. And so that's what I got engaged in. And it really started for me with work at the local level.

Leah Stokes

And so you ended up working both in Massachusetts and Connecticut. State policy often feels like where we retreat to when the federal government goes completely haywire on the climate or environment file. And you really got a lot of your start at the state and local level. So what was it like and how has that state experience informed so much of the work that you've done going forward?

Gina McCarthy

I always enjoyed state work because it was a point in time when really states were growing up to understand how they needed to regulate, what rules they need to put in place. It was an opportunity really to show people what we could do and what we should do and to put those coulds and shoulds into action. And what I've learned since then is that while the federal government is an interesting place to be and you hope they do a good job, but even if they don't, you have states and cities that can really kick butt on these issues. They don't need to ask permission in many cases to be able to write regulations or laws or standards. And I think doing that is probably the best protection you have from rollbacks at the federal level and also the best opportunities you have to really drive change because that's how change happens.

It's bottom up. Everything I know that has ever been done well and had an impact has been done from the bottom up.

Leah Stokes

Yeah. And during this period, of course, Massachusetts decides to sue the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act and say that greenhouse gases are endangering human health, American's health, and they have a requirement to regulate them if the endangerment finding is issued. Of course, Obama wins his election and then nominates you to be the assistant administrator to the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation just as this sort of endangerment finding issue is starting to become central. So what was that like at that time when you first joined the EPA during the Obama administration?

Gina McCarthy

It was a big learning experience for me because working in Connecticut, you're doing work with other states, but you're not in the weeds on what it takes to write a rule or a regulation. And so I can remember first going into EPA and calling my meeting with all my team and some of the big legal staff, blah, blah, blah. And they all just stared at me. I was like, "If you think I'm the one that knows stuff, you're wrong. Come on, baby. Let's have some fun. Let's engage." And it didn't take long before people realized that I was not trying to step on them. I was trying to elevate the work and make it more meaningful. And you're right, that was when we started looking at the endangerment finding.

Katharine Wilkinson

Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants, shocker, and therefore covered by the Clean Air Act and subject, of course, to EPA regulation.

Leah Stokes

Two years later, when Obama was in office and Gina was at the EPA, they officially released the endangerment finding, which stated that six greenhouse gases pose a risk to human health and welfare.

Katharine Wilkinson

So that was what was happening when Gina stepped into her role at the EPA.

Gina McCarthy

So by 2009, we had a lot of information and we ended up moving forward with the endangerment finding and the complimentary Clean Air Act rulemakings that we needed to have to actually reduce emissions from vehicles. And so it was, I think, a really monumental time. I can remember then President Obama making a big speech, which was so good. It sort of explained to us why climate was such a fundamental problem and that we had expertise to be able to move forward to address that. And the endangerment finding was just a pivotal structure that we could build on to actually move forward to regulate greenhouse gas emissions like we're supposed to. And I think for EPA, we really showed what we could do by following the science, by having the detail in there, by not allowing anybody to be able to see one single flaw, no 'i' that wasn't dotted or 't' that wasn't crossed.

We were so anal, it was ridiculous, but that's what you have to do, right? And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that anything good comes hard like that.

President Obama

No nation, however, large or small, wealthier poor can escape the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten every coastline. More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent droughts and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive. On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees. The security and stability of each nation and all peoples, our prosperity, our health, and our safety are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out. And yet we can reverse it. John F. Kennedy once observed that our problems are manmade, therefore they may be solved by man. It is true that for too many years, mankind has been slow to respond or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well. We recognize that, but this is a new day.

It is a new era, and I'm proud to say that the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history.

Leah Stokes

So Katharine, as many of our listeners probably remember, back during the Obama administration, they tried to pass a climate law through Congress. It was called the Waxman-Markey Bill. And even though it passed the House, it never managed to get through the Senate.

Katharine Wilkinson

It would've been a really landmark bill to have a national greenhouse gas cap and trade program. I mean, it really did feel like we had the best chance in a generation of passing federal climate legislation. Dear Senator Markey pushed so hard and it got all the way to the finish line and it petered out in the Senate.

Leah Stokes

So Gina was working at the Environmental Protection Agency when she was watching all that go down in Congress.

Gina McCarthy

The thing I remember the most is when it collapsed. How sad is that, right? I remember poor Senator Markey, I thought he would cry for the rest of his life. He looks so distraught, but it didn't stop us from continuing the drive forward because that's life in Washington DC, like it or not. You have to be better than the best and you have to keep moving forward. And I think it certainly didn't stop EPA in our tracks whatsoever.

Leah Stokes

So of course you're the assistant administrator initially. And then in Obama's second term, you are nominated to be the administrator of the EPA, and it's a pretty grueling 136-day record-length confirmation process at the time.

Gina McCarthy

But who's counting, Leah? I mean, seriously.

Leah Stokes

I'm sure you were counting at the time, Gina. What was that like first to know that President Obama wanted to nominate you then to go through this grueling experience and then to run a giant really important agency?

Gina McCarthy

I had a really good relationship with President Obama and I did with Joe Biden as well. And everything we did was sort of groundbreaking at EPA. It was sort of like you have to make sure that the people you work for at the highest levels understand what you're trying to do and what you are doing and whether it's reasonable. So I was constantly at the White House, not constantly hanging out with President Obama, I wish, or President Biden at that point. I started hanging out with him all the time when he became president. But it was always interesting because both Biden and Obama asked very hard questions. They didn't just take on face value anything that you did. And so you really had to be ultimately prepared. And the same goes with Congress. And we kept plugging along with our air program and our climate programs, and that was really when the Clean Power Plan really took its shape.

Leah Stokes

For those listeners who may not remember these thorny details, the Clean Power Plan was the Obama administration's attempt to implement the Clean Air Act after they issued the endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, but the Supreme Court halted the implementation of the Clean Power Plan before it even really started.

Katharine Wilkinson

It really would've been an amazing way to reduce carbon pollution from electricity generation. And the fight continued and continued and eventually, well, our team lost during the years of the Biden administration.

Leah Stokes

But as Gina points out, even the development of that policy ended up making a big difference. So while the Supreme Court struck the Clean Power Plan down, said it wasn't allowed, there was still progress that was made. Because companies, after talking with Gina and her team, started to see the path forward and began making big changes.

Gina McCarthy

And Leah, I will tell you, and people may not believe it, but I had probably two years of ongoing discussions with industry groups before we did the Clean Power Plan. It was fundamentally making a step forward that would be significant, but not more than that, in a way that would've prevented us from getting that over the finish line. If you work with industry and you get them all to sort of agree to one step, all of a sudden they're beating each other to get to the second or third, and that's actually what happened. We saw a tremendous amount of moving forward on climate because of the Clean Power Plan that was stayed within minutes of its passage, right? So you got to recognize that it's not a game in any way, but it's a strategy. You had to work with all the NGOs and all the industry reps to be able to get them to understand that what they were doing was setting them on a course that would be incredibly beneficial to the power plants that continued to exist.

And clearly, that was pocket vetoed, if you will, by the Supreme Court and kept in abeyance forever. But if you look at what actually happened, you will see that that was part of the remarkable transition that made clean energy come alive.

Leah Stokes

Yeah. A friend of mine, Rebecca Solnit, the writer, she often talks about how people just think in absolutes. It was a total success or it was a total failure, but the utilities themselves changed their behavior in the experience of negotiating, anticipating that this regulation might happen, that it wasn't a total failure, even if it didn't fully get implemented.

Gina McCarthy

And the thing that I've always hung onto is the fact that we worked so hard with the various power plants, the industries that were really hell bent on not letting this kind of change happen. What they began to realize with the Clean Power Plan was that it was actually going to save them money. It was actually going to be beneficial to them because if you do things right like we're doing with clean energy, if it's faster and it's cheaper and it's cleaner, and it can be an ancillary consideration to any industry who doesn't want to think about health, but it ain't ancillary to the rest of us who want to be healthy, if you pull that all together, it really shows that the smart thing to do is to really talk and collaborate as much as you can. I can remember getting a call from one of the biggest curmudgeons in the power plant world who was the bane of my existence for eight years or so.

And he called me and he said, "Hey, Gina, this came out pretty good. Thanks." I'm like, "Seriously?" I thought I would faint away from my desk and fall flat on my face. But he meant it because he began to see that change and they began to realize that the shift was already happening. So you end up in that sweet spot of not demanding more than anyone can chew, but demanding enough that you set a path forward, that it drives the change you're looking for.

Leah Stokes

The other thing that happens at the end of the Obama administration's, of course, the Paris Climate Agreement, and you had been talking about how the scientific work you were doing at EPA with the Clean Power Plan, with the endangerment finding, was really the United States saying, "We're in on this climate action." And then the Paris Agreement really captures that. So what did that moment mean at the end of the Obama administration?

Gina McCarthy

It was a joyous moment. I was in Paris and it was a magnificent time. It was a time when I felt like the world was finally going to be prepared for the challenges of climate change. And frankly, I'm not sure that everybody is aware of just how powerful the United States is in negotiations like this. Maybe they realize it now when they see what's happening with this administration. But what I realized then was just how important our word was, how much we could collaborate with the countries of the world to actually do something like the Paris Agreement. It was wonderful. It was a great time of celebration.

Leah Stokes

And of course, the next thing that happens is the 2016 election and Trump takes over, and so much of his first term really focuses on dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency. You had been the head of this organization and suddenly there really is an attack on it. What did that feel like during that time?

Gina McCarthy

It was so frustrating, but it was also at a time when he didn't know what he wanted to do. And so I can't say that I felt like he was successful in dismantling things because he never got around to doing that. He didn't have as bad a team as he has now, so people were protecting from within to make sure that we could continue to do work. So that was a frustrating time, but it was nothing like what we're seeing in the next round of Trumpism.

Leah Stokes

And of course, you personally, during this time period, decide to take on running the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC. They, I believe, filed a hundred lawsuits challenging changes to environmental policy made by Trump's first administration. So there's a natural fit there, but I'm just curious, why'd you want to take on that role?

Gina McCarthy

Really, the main reason I took it on was because I absolutely loved the NRDC. They sued me all the time when I was at EPA, because you do. I mean, that's what they do. They had incredible legal staff, plus they did a lot of the range of work that I knew would be fundamental to any next step. I want people to understand that EPA can do things like we talked about with rulemakings and regulations and policies, but if you don't have a strong outside force that's challenging your every move, then you don't belong in the United States of America because that's what we do, right? We push and pull each other along to do the right thing at the right times. And that's why I wanted to see how an NGO works. And I loved every single minute of it, and I was resoundingly chastised for having left it at too short a period of time.

Leah Stokes

Because of course, the call comes about 12 months later from now President-elect Joe Biden to ask you to be the first national climate advisor. And the rumor is that maybe you didn't say yes initially, Gina. What were you thinking at that time?

Gina McCarthy

Honestly, the job he asked me to do was a great job, but I was having real fun working with NRDC. You know what I mean? We were expanding what we were doing. It was an exciting moment for me. The only problem with it was that COVID hit. We were all in masks. We had shut down NRDC's office as everybody else had to shut down in New York City. I was packing up in ... That's a lie. My husband was packing up my apartment. I did talk to Joe Biden and he was really kind and gracious and thoughtful about recognizing that it may not have been my next favorite move. I agreed to do it and I told him it would be time limited. At this point in my life, I thought it'd be a really good time to not always be away from my husband and my family, but I had to do it because when the president calls, you do it. Plus it was a wicked fun idea. The entire work that I did was all about clean energy. And we knew it was on the cusp of something really incredible, something that could leave fossil fuels in the dust. And I know it still will. It's just taken a little longer than we both want, I think.

Leah Stokes

And so one of the jobs in the White House that you had was to build a sort of inaugural team of climate leaders in the White House. What was it like to have a team, a sort of special forces team, for lack of a better term, at the White House, all focused on climate that you were in charge of?

Gina McCarthy

It was like a SWAT team. And the main role of that was to develop the Inflation Reduction Act.

Katharine Wilkinson

Of course, the Inflation Reduction Act was a landmark climate bill that invested billions of dollars in renewable energy. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia held the absolutely essential vote.

Leah Stokes

What eventually gets called the Inflation Reduction Act starts off as Build Back Better. It has a bunch of stuff in it. Things fall out. It's dramatic. There's lots of twists and turns. Of course, it's December 2021. You're supposed to be quitting your job according to your deal with the President, and yet Manchin goes on Fox News on the last Sunday right before Christmas to say the whole deal is dead.

Gina McCarthy

How can you possibly remind me of these things? This is just evil.

Leah Stokes

This is what you lived through, Gina.

Gina McCarthy

I did. We were not best friends, me and Joe Manchin, not best friends.

Leah Stokes

Of course, Manchin comes back to the table. He's mostly negotiating with Senator Schumer in the spring of 2022. And then in early July, the whole deal falls apart again. And Manchin and Schumer say to the press that they are not going to come to a deal, they're just going to pass a bill with Affordable Care Act subsidies and maybe some tax reforms and call it a day. Why did you believe that it was still going to pass when the rest of the world was fairly convinced it was dead?

Gina McCarthy

I just think it's the Irish in me. We just don't give up. I have seen so many things where people counted a bill dead and it rose from the dead. You know what I mean? And this was one of them. There were some really good people in Joe Biden's really solid team in his White House that had relationships with people on the Hill, including Joe Manchin. The conversations were not visible, they were not loud, but they never stopped.

Leah Stokes

So of course, the Inflation Reduction Act does pass and it's implemented and you watch that all unfold. I think a lot of people, when they look at the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they think, "Oh my gosh, the Inflation Reduction Act failed. It's dead." But they discount the fact that the law was enforced for, what is it, almost three years before it was repealed, and that certain parts of it were never repealed, the manufacturing incentives, the battery incentives, the solar incentives partially. So how do you feel about some of the popular narrative, which is like, it was useless and we failed?

Gina McCarthy

Well, first of all, I don't hear that a lot. Maybe it's because I don't want to. Maybe it's selective hearing, which my mother always told me I always had. But if you stopped and focused on what solar can do, if you stop and focus on what heat pumps are capable of doing, those are all benefits that every human being can see, feel, taste, smell, and enjoy. That is the key, I think, to how you govern. Leah, I do work now mostly with states and cities to capture the ingenuity in state and local governments at a time when the federal government is totally out of the loop like now. And I find it to be remarkable. I do not find states sitting on the sidelines bemoaning a loss of anything. I see them continuing to fight like hell and I see them continuing to win. It's just against the backdrop of this administration.

But I do think we have to really try to get our head into a place where we recognize the challenges that we're seeing, but we also have to look at those opportunities that are in front of us because that's what's going to save us. And so we'll fight like hell, I think, against all the nonsense at the federal government that's being pursued and the danger that we now face because of this administration.

Leah Stokes

And of course, the Trump administration recently tried to repeal the endangerment finding with a bunch of bunk science. How did that moment make you feel?

Gina McCarthy

Look, the endangerment finding was not a political statement. The endangerment finding was an obligation that EPA had to look at the science and to make a decision then if the science was threatening, which it was, and the science was clear, then we had to initiate protections. We had to do rulemakings, and that's what led to rulemaking specifically about the car sector. So they rolled it back, but we'll rule it again when we have to, but I'm not even sure we need to do that, frankly, because the car companies are not stupid. They know where they're going to make their money. They see what's happening in China. They know that they have to get busy to make the kind of cars that we all want, which are the ones that don't pollute. And so we'll see where that all takes us. But I don't feel like the endangerment finding at that point in time was going to change anybody's mind about anything because by this point in time, no one can legitimately say that climate change is not a risk to our health and wellbeing.

That is so well proven. And sadly, it's so well proven.

Leah Stokes

Well, and one side effect of this war in Iran is that oil prices are going to jump and that's going to make it even more expensive to drive a gas powered car. And even more people are going to adopt electric vehicles, which save people money every single time they fuel them up with clean electrons. So yeah, the whole world's going to move in this direction.

Gina McCarthy

Well, I wish it was moving because of doing something good, but you're absolutely right. I mean, I think everybody knows that there is tremendous risk in reliance on fossil fuels for any length of time. That's true in the United States and it's true all across the world. If you have a product like that to sell and you want to sell it to folks who don't care about our country, that's one thing. You can make that decision. But I would caution folks to do everything they can to get away from our dependence and others' dependence on fossil fuels. And let's move to a clean energy future that's better for all of us.

Katharine Wilkinson

I have to say, I really love me some Gina McCarthy. And her story really does capture the rollercoaster of climate policy.

Leah Stokes

And right now, it can feel like that rollercoaster has just taken a dramatic dip. But Gina's story is also a reminder to take the longer view.

Katharine Wilkinson

Climate action has never been a straight upward line. It's a pendulum that swings with wins and losses, breakthroughs, and backlash, progress, and setbacks, and then progress again.

Leah Stokes

The truth is clean energy is more affordable than ever. It's wildly popular and across the country, states, cities, and communities are still moving us forward. They're laying the groundwork for the next wave of federal action when the political winds shift.

Katharine Wilkinson

And as Bill McKibben said in a recent newsletter, "The winds, the weather, the climate is going to continue changing and insisting in fact that the political wins follow." So this is not the end of the story. It is the middle. It is a tough middle, but it is not the end.

Leah Stokes

And if Gina has told us anything today, it's that progress doesn't happen by accident. It happens because people stay in the fight. On our next episode of A Matter of Degrees, we have a very special guest. It's someone you know rather well.

Katharine Wilkinson

I think, is it me? Am I the guest?

Leah Stokes

Yes, Katharine, you are the special guest. For the past year, Katharine has been writing a book. It's called Climate Wayfinding.

Katharine Wilkinson

This is a book that really meets us at the crossroads that we often find ourselves on our climate journeys, where we might feel stuck, we might feel overwhelmed, we might be asking, "What can I do or what can I do now?" And it's a book that you can certainly just read, but you can also do to help you transform, ache into action, doubt into possibility, and bring the unique gifts you have into the work where it's so needed.

Leah Stokes

So in our next episode, Katharine and I are going to dive into her new book and help people figure out how to find their way on our changing planet.

Katharine Wilkinson

This lovely book will be out on May 5th. We will be hitting the road for events in lots of cities beginning in mid-April, and you can find all of that info and pre-order the book at climatewayfinding.earth.

Leah Stokes

So make sure you tune in next time for another episode of A Matter of Degrees. A Matter of Degrees is co-hosted by me, Dr. Leah Stokes.

Katharine Wilkinson

And me, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson. We are a production made in partnership with The 2035 initiative at UC Santa Barbara and the All We Can Save Project.

Leah Stokes

Thanks to our funders and supporters who make this show possible, including the Anton Vonk Chair in Environmental Politics and the 11th Hour Project. If you'd like to help us make more episodes, please reach out.

Katharine Wilkinson

And if you're digging the show, hop on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five-star rating or leave us a review.

Leah Stokes

Script writing, fact-checking, communication, research, and production support are by Lucas Boyd and Christin Palmstrom. Sameer Sengupta is our editor and sound designer.

Katharine Wilkinson

Rose Wong designed our show art. Sean Marquand composed our theme song. Additional music came from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.

Leah Stokes

You can find us online at degreespod.com and on YouTube.

Katharine Wilkinson

Stay tuned for more stories for the climate curious.

Gina McCarthy

I see them continuing to wind. To win. I didn't mean to add a D to the win. The win, win, win.

Leah Stokes

Well, that's not a bad one. Wind, win, wind, win.

Gina McCarthy

Yeah. Wind wins.