For decades, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has been responsible for some of the country’s most important public health safeguards — regulating pollution, monitoring air and water quality, and helping shape the federal government’s response to climate change.
But former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy says the agency is now undergoing a dramatic transformation that could have consequences lasting years beyond the Trump administration. McCarthy, who led the EPA under President Obama before serving as President Biden’s first White House National Climate Advisor, helped shape the country’s climate and environmental policy across two administrations.
In a wide-ranging interview with Katie Couric Media, McCarthy said decades of environmental protections are being weakened, scientific expertise is being sidelined, and the agency’s core mission is being rewritten around fossil fuel production.
Here’s what she's most concerned about — and why, despite those fears, she still sees reasons for hope.
Katie Couric Media: When you look at the EPA today, what concerns you the most?
Gina McCarthy: I think the challenge we’re facing at EPA is a total lack of leadership and accountability when it comes to the agency’s mission. EPA’s mission is to protect public health and welfare. Right now, the agency has turned that mission on its head.
The only thing they appear to be really focused on is advancing fossil fuels above all else. They’re rewriting the agency’s mission around what they call “powering the Great American comeback,” which, above all else, is just about burning more fossil fuels.
We’re in a very difficult position. Former EPA staff and others are struggling to explain what’s happening, while the rest of us are going to feel the impacts on our health and well-being for decades if EPA doesn’t get back on track.
Officials often talk about “deregulation.” What does that actually mean in practice?
When people talk about deregulation, what they really mean is weakening the limits that have been placed on industries to reduce pollution.
Right now, EPA and many of the industries it regulates are working hand in hand — not to reduce pollution, but to eliminate pollution controls that have been put in place for decades.
So now you see chemical plants, power plants, and lots of other facilities getting a free pass to produce more pollution. That’s directly opposite the agency's mission, and most importantly, it puts some of our vulnerable communities — especially our kids — at risk.
Where would ordinary Americans feel these changes first?
Currently, the EPA has basically failed to implement standards that would address air and water pollution, which would tackle contaminants that end up in people's communities, their drinking water supplies, and the air they breathe.
We’re talking about pollution limits that have been weakened or taken away, so they're not even monitoring brain-damaging mercury or greenhouse gas emissions. All of those things just send a signal that the work the EPA is built on is being torn down brick by brick.
What does undoing the endangerment finding mean for climate policy?
The endangerment finding was enormously important because it followed science to show that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. It helped establish the scientific basis for understanding climate change.
This administration believes that climate change is not an issue for them. They're denying that, and instead they're undermining our ability to have the kind of clean air and security that not just the United States but our planet demands.
What’s most alarming is how other countries now view the United States. They were looking at us as the country that would lead on issues like climate change. And now we have an administration that's denying climate change, pulling out of the opportunity we have to reduce our carbon emissions in the United States. That is impacting countries across the world.
If the United States starts aligning with other countries that deny climate change exists — such as Russia or, at times, Saudi Arabia — we're taking monumental steps backward from the understanding we’ve built about why addressing carbon emissions is so important — how climate change can destabilize the environment and result in air and water that you cannot breathe or drink.
That’s the challenge we’re facing right now, and it’s the very challenge this president of the United States is calling a hoax.
The EPA has implemented layoffs and lab closures in the name of budget cuts. How do these moves affect the agency’s scientific integrity?
EPA has largely shut down many of its science and climate divisions. Some scientific work is still happening, but the people reviewing it have been hand-picked because they don’t believe in climate change and are willing to deny science that has been credible for decades.
They’ve replaced scientific rigor with people who lack scientific credibility and don’t fully understand the work EPA is supposed to do — or its mission to protect public health and well-being.
How hard is it to rebuild an agency once it’s been dismantled like this?
Traditionally, the regulatory process at EPA is extremely rigorous and often more lengthy than many of us would like. But what we’re seeing now is a complete reversal of what the agency used to be — an agency that relied on rigorous regulatory analysis grounded in science.
It’s going to take a really long time to rebuild these regulations because you can’t simply say the new rules are scientifically wrong and move on. You have to go back to square one and rebuild the scientific foundation behind them, and that takes time. Generally, EPA regulations can take 2 to 5 years to approve because the process is so rigorous.
We went out to industry groups all over the country. We went out to environmental advocates, the scientific community — every group we could think of — to make sure the endangerment finding was both credible and able to stand the test of time. And we were right about that.
But now we’re seeing an administration that has unilaterally dismantled that environmental framework and is making decisions based on just a couple of paragraphs: “We’ve gotten rid of this rule, we’re not going to do that anymore.”
It’s an entirely different approach from anything EPA has done in its history: Ignoring science, ignoring the law, and putting a few paragraphs in front of the American people and saying, essentially, that the deal is done.
Do you think these moves reflect broader political shifts happening right now?
This administration — and many Republicans in Congress — are trying to diminish EPA’s ability to function while convincing Americans they won’t be harmed by these rollbacks.
I don’t think people fully see the damage yet. But over time, I believe they will, and that’s the sad part. We’re watching air pollution protections and water quality safeguards be dismantled. A year from now, we may no longer be able to take clean air for granted or rely on the same clean water standards we’ve long depended on.
Those protections helped lay the foundation for much of the EPA's work. My concern is that the foundation is being weakened in ways that won’t stand the test of time and will eventually have to be rebuilt. And rebuilding that scientific capacity and institutional expertise could take years, which is why I worry about how long it may take for the EPA to truly get back on its feet and fulfill its mission.
Is there anything that gives you hope right now?
What excites me is the work happening through America Is All In, where I serve as chair. The whole mission is to ensure the voices of states, cities, corporations, and nonprofits are heard — and to focus not on the negativity, but on the incredible opportunities clean energy is already creating across the United States.
People sometimes lose sight of how much progress is being made, but communities across the country are already generating electricity from clean energy. Wind power generated in New Mexico, for example, is supplying energy to consumers in California and Arizona — enough to power roughly 3 million people through just one wind energy system.
And we’re only seeing more momentum: Offshore wind continues to move forward despite legal and political challenges. We’re seeing 100 wind turbines off the coast of North Carolina, with more on the way. There’s a growing recognition — both internationally and here in the United States — that fossil fuels are not the future.
What’s driving that shift isn’t just that clean energy is cleaner — it’s cheaper. Fossil fuels are no longer the low-cost option; clean energy increasingly is. Even some coal plants are struggling to stay afloat because they simply can’t compete economically.
We’ve talked about a lot of difficult things. But the bigger picture is that the clean energy transition is already happening — home by home, community by community — and it’s moving quickly.
And it’s not just wind and solar. Heat pumps are taking off. Solar technology is becoming more accessible than ever — you can now put panels on the porch of a condo building, plug them in, and generate power for that unit. It’s remarkable, and it still feels like just the beginning.
I really believe we’re capable of doing extraordinary things. The innovation this country has always prided itself on will help show us the path forward.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
