Anti-pollution activist could lead Biden's EPA overhaul

摘要

An unsparing critic of the Trump administration's environmental policies could find herself leading the reversal of the very regulatory rollbacks she has denounced in recent years. Rumored to be on President-elect Joe Biden's short list to lead EPA, Heather McTeer Toney has developed a well-honed skill bashing the Trump EPA's regulatory agenda. Take a February congressional hearing on an EPA proposal to gut the legal underpinning for landmark limits on power plant emissions of mercury emissions, known to be a neurotoxin. "I am baffled at the fact that we're still working to prevent our federal government from allowing industry to poison unborn babies' brains," Toney, a former EPA regional administrator now with Moms Clean Air Force, told members of a House Oversight and Reform subcommittee. Toney has also branded the administration's broader regulatory rollback agenda as racist and championed her group's petition drive to remove current EPA chief Andrew Wheeler.