Gina McCarthy
White House Climate Advisor
Regina McCarthy was born in May 1954 in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned an undergraduate degree in social anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She received a master’s degree combining environmental health engineering with planning and policy from Tufts University.
She held several positions in civil service in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including undersecretary for policy for Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and Deputy Secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development. She served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, and later held the position of Assistant Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation.
President Barack Obama nominated McCarthy to be head of the EPA. She was confirmed by the Senate and assumed the office of Administrator in July 2013. At the end of the Obama Administration, she joined a private equity firm, then became director of a new climate and health science center at Harvard. She later became professor of Public Health Practice. She was appointed president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
McCarthy was named by President Joe Biden to be the first National Climate Advisor and head of the White House Office of Climate Policy.
She is married to Kenneth McCarey and they have three adult children.
In the News…
President Biden’s National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy said on Tuesday some ambitious proposals to fight climate change could fall out of the infrastructure package, but the administration would not give up its pursuit of the measures to promote green energy to reduce greenhouse gases.
“I think a lot of people have concerns,” she said. “We have concerns about whether they’re going to meet the moment in the kind of bold way in which President Biden knows we have to.”
She supports a clean energy standard that would set federal mandates to increase carbon-free electricity production to cut the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the end of the decade.
“While every piece like a clean electricity standard may not end [up] in the final version, we know that it is necessary; we know that the millions want it; we are going to fight like crazy to make sure that it’s in there. And then we’re going to be open to a range of other investment strategies,” she said.
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Ms. McCarthy today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Gina McCarthy
White House Office of Climate Policy
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
