The Senate on Wednesday voted to confirm Joseph Goffman to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s air office, which is racing to finalize some of President Biden’s most consequential climate rules before the end of his first term.
Biden first tapped Goffman for the role in March 2022. But all Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) have held up his nomination for nearly two years in protest of the administration’s climate policies.
Goffman, a veteran of the EPA under President Barack Obama, has been leading the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation on an acting basis since January 2021. He has overseen the development of strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and vehicles, two of the country’s biggest contributors to climate change.
The office had been hoping to finalize limits on fine particle matter, one of the nation’s most widespread deadly air pollutants, by the end of January. But EPA lawyers said in a court filing Tuesday that these rules have been delayed until mid-February amid intense opposition from industry groups.
With a 50-49 vote, all Republicans joined Manchin in opposing Goffman’s nomination. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said on the Senate floor before the vote that Goffman has pursued a “misguided climate agenda, regardless of what the law says or its disastrous consequences on the reliability of the grid or the affordability of energy.”
In his own prepared remarks, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, praised Goffman as “thoughtful, principled and humble.”
“Joe Goffman has dedicated his life’s work to cleaning up the air we breathe and protecting our one and only planet,” Carper said.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan applauded the confirmation in a statement, saying Goffman is uniquely skilled at crafting climate policies “while at the same time addressing longstanding pollution concerns in overburdened communities.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a fierce critic of the Biden administration’s climate agenda, did not vote. Barrasso’s wife died last week following a battle with brain cancer.
Goffman is no stranger to Capitol Hill, having served as associate counsel on the Environment and Public Works Committee in 1989 and 1990 and as Democratic chief counsel in 2017. In his earlier stint with the committee, he helped craft legislation that successfully curbed acid rain, a major environmental threat.
Goffman first joined the EPA’s air office in 2009 at the outset of the Obama administration. He played a key role in crafting the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
In 2016, the Supreme Court took the surprise step of staying the Clean Power Plan before it could take effect nationwide. In January 2017, when Donald Trump took office, Goffman left the EPA to become executive director of Harvard’s energy and environmental law program.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/01/31/joseph-goffman-epa-air-office/