EPA, IRA, WTF 🤬, with Gina McCarthy

This episode was recorded live at the WBUR Festival, which celebrated the Boston public radio station’s 75th anniversary. 🥳 Speakers included Roxanne Gay, Ira Glass, and mayor Michelle Wu, but the headliner for all the climate nerds was Gina McCarthy.

Gina McCarthy speaking in the "How to Save the Planet" session at The WBUR Festival. (WBUR/Bolt)

For all 8 years of the Obama administration, Gina was a leading figure at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). First as head of the Office of Air (remember when people in charge over there cared about clean air? 🫤), then as head of the agency.

Gina left government service not expecting to return — she took a position at Harvard, then became the president of NRDC. But President Biden called on her to be the first ever National Climate Advisor, and to set up a whole climate team in the White House. She took the job and helped the administration enact arguably the most important climate policy in US history.

(WBUR/Bolt)

Perhaps Gina’s crowning achievement was her work on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Congress passed this landmark bill in 2022, which allocated about $400 billion to the clean energy transition and has so far created over 400,000 clean energy jobs. It also reframed climate action as an economic opportunity — America can move away from fossil fuels, while reinvigorating the economy.

It was a huge deal, pivotal both in dollars and in shifting the status quo. But much of this climate progress, much of Gina’s work, is now under threat from the Trump administration. 🤬

So, in front of a live audience in a Boston University auditorium, Gina and I discussed the EPA, the IRA, what’s at stake for us all... and, why we must never, ever pave paradise.

Gina’s Calls to Action

• Work in your communities at the local level. Build constituencies. It’s all about working together.

• Don’t let young people think they don’t have a future. Show them they have a hand in building the future.

Mentioned in this episode:

• EPA’s clean power plant rule

• The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is the largest investment for climate in U.S. history.

• Roughly 80% of IRA benefits in republican districts.

• More than 400,000 new clean energy jobs have been created since the passage of IRA.

• Texas and Iowa lead on wind energy generation.

• Utility-scale solar is the cheapest form of energy, in most places.

• America is All In initiative

• My op-ed in Rolling Stone: What Now for Climate under Trump? Act Locally

• Almost half the drinking water in the country is contaminated.

• They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals by Mariah Blake

Backstage with Gina. (Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media)

Credits

This episode was made possible with the support of Future Being, a grantmaking and special projects studio which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

This show is produced and edited by Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media and me (Ayana), with help from Jenisha Shrestha. Thank you to WBUR and Grist for hosting us, and many thanks to Gina McCarthy.