Top Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy Is Said To Be Planning To Leave

WASHINGTON — White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy has told confidants she is disappointed with the slow progress in climate and plans to step down in the coming months, according to several people she spoke with.

Friends and colleagues said on Thursday that McCarthy, 67, who has served since the beginning of the Biden administration, is expected to remain in office for about a year.

According to a person familiar with Ms. McCarthy’s plans, President Biden asked her to stay. Others who spoke to him in recent days said that Ms McCarthy had denied to them that she would be leaving soon, and that she had told her friends that she did not have a firm date in mind. He is expected to be replaced by his deputy, Ali Zaidi.

Ms McCarthy did not respond to requests for comment on her plans, first reported by Reuters. White House spokesman Vedant Patel described the reports as “untrue”.

“We have no staff announcements to make,” Mr. Patel said in a statement. “Gina and her entire team remain laser-focused on fulfilling President Biden’s clean energy agenda.”

Mr. Biden commissioned Ms. McCarthy, who served as director of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama, to lead the ambitious climate agenda that aims to roughly halve the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by the end of this decade.

But his plans were stalled in Congress due to unified opposition from Republicans as well as Republicans. Senator Joe Manchin IIIWest Virginia Democrat representing a pivotal vote in the equally divided Senate.

Separately, Mr. Biden plans to use his executive power to enact new stringent rules on greenhouse pollution from power plants and automobiles. may be sharply limited by a decision from the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Additionally, the war in Ukraine has increased gasoline prices and encouraged Mr. Biden to take damning steps for climate activists. HE IS released in record amounts Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve provides oil and gas companies with more drilling and temporarily relaxed environmental rules Allowing gasoline mixed with ethanol to be sold during the summer months when it is normally prohibited as it can cause smoke.

Those moves came landmark United Nations report Top scientists from around the world have been published warning that time is running out for nations to move away from fossil fuels or face a future climate catastrophe.

One person described Ms. McCarthy as in “besieged mode” and said she was concerned about the political and legal challenges facing the administration’s climate plans. Others said she complained about the difficulties of traveling and being away from her husband.

But publicly, Ms McCarthy stressed that she is optimistic about the prospects for the climate law to pass this year. At a recent event in Washington, he said he wasn’t “naive” about the challenges, but said, “I think we’ll have a bill to act this fall.”

While working in the Obama administration, Ms. McCarthy was the chief architect of the president’s history and far-reaching climate change policies.

After the election of Donald J. Trump, Ms. McCarthy became chair of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought more than 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration because Mr. Trump opposed much of Mr. Obama’s environmental legacy.

Under Mr Biden’s administration, Ms McCarthy has been accused of spearheading a “whole government” approach, in which nearly every federal agency has enacted new regulations designed to address climate change. She had also hoped to guide Congress through the passage of new climate laws that could not be undone by a future president and ensure a steady reduction in the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributing reporting.