With just eight months left in her tenure with the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama’s Administration, Administrator Gina McCarthy sees the world on the verge of a “second wave” in environmental protection. In an April 14 Bloomberg BNA interview, McCarthy recalled the big wave of very visible environmental improvements in the 1960s and suggested there are technologies, opportunities and momentum today to eliminate pollution exposures and “create a much more sustainable way of living within the resources of the world.”
One component of the next wave of environmental protection is to have public health officials work more closely with environmental regulators, McCarthy said, noting human environmental activities “are directly impacting public health.” She believes people now are “as invested as they’ve ever been in making sure that their public health is protected – and looking to EPA as part of that protection process.”
Coming from a public health background, McCarthy said she has always seen the environment as a public health issue. “The evidence is there. We are directly impacting public health. And I think we have been limiting ourselves to just engaging with environmental agencies at the state level. I want to hang out with the health agencies. I want to hang out with [Health and Human Services] at the federal level…There’s a place for EPA at a larger table than we have set before and that’s what this is all about: making that table larger.”
In discussing President Obama’s environmental legacy on the water side, McCarthy pointed to the Clean Water Rule and success in the protection of rivers and streams, not just for fish, but also as source water for drinking water systems. “We’ve made tremendous steps forward, but we’ve also identified tremendous gaps in the system – and needs moving forward – that I hope will position the next administration to be informed by, so that investments can be made [in water and wastewater technology] to make sure people have the safe drinking water that they expect,” she said.
Future administrations will have to develop a strategy to actually get investment in water infrastructure, she said. “We’re going to be able to tee up that issue, but not get that issue over the finish line. That is a multiyear strategy.”
As for the remaining time in her tenure, McCarthy said: “We’re not in, by any means, a slow down mode nor should we be. We’re going to be running through the tape at the end of this race.”