President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., to serve as secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI), and Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan, to be secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE). Haaland and Granholm are among the nominees and appointees to the incoming administration’s climate team.
Haaland currently serves as vice chair of the House Natural Resources Committee and vice chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, while Granholm is former attorney general of Michigan and founder of the American Jobs Project.
Biden also announced the nominations of Michael Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Brenda Mallory, director of regulatory policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center, as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.
Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator, has been chosen to lead the newly established White House Ofice of Domestic Climate Policy, as national climate adviser. She currently serves as president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Ali Zaidi, New York’s deputy secretary for energy and environment and chairman of climate policy and finance, will serve in the incoming administration as deputy national climate adviser. He helped negotiate the Paris Climate Agreement and draft and implement the Climate Action Plan during the Obama administration.
