Jared Blumenfeld, California’s prime environmental regulator and a key local weather adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom, will go away the administration on the finish of the month, Newsom introduced Friday.
Newsom, a Democrat, appointed Blumenfeld as secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency on his first day in workplace in 2019. Blumenfeld will change into president of the Waverley Street Foundation, a $3 billion local weather initiative funded by Laurene Powell Jobs.
As head of the state’s environmental company, he was accountable for departments that regulate air air pollution, water use, recycling, poisonous substances, pesticides, and environmental well being hazards like excessive warmth.
Yana Garcia, particular assistant lawyer normal centered on environmental points within the California Department of Justice, will take over as head of the California EPA subsequent month. Blumenfeld stated the company now rivals the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its workers and funds.
Blumenfeld was one of the vital public-facing members of Newsom’s administration, representing the state at worldwide conferences and public hearings. He was personally named in a lawsuit by the Trump administration difficult California’s skill to link its emissions buying and selling program with an analogous one in Canada.
In an interview with The Associated Press Friday, Blumenfeld stated he made a guidelines when he took the job of issues he needed to perform, together with much less headline-grabbing gadgets like reforming the state’s damaged Department of Toxic Substances Control and cleansing up contaminated ingesting water.
The final merchandise on his record was to start out cleansing up the Santa Susana Field Lab, he stated, a contaminated Southern California website that was as soon as dwelling to nuclear analysis and rocket engine exams. He helped negotiate a cleanup take care of Boeing that was authorised by a regional water board this week over the objection of some environmentalists, the Los Angeles Times reported.
But the primary yr of Blumenfeld’s tenure was additionally spent defending California’s local weather insurance policies in opposition to threats from the Trump administration, together with an effort to revoke California’s skill to set its personal automobile emissions guidelines. The state has since received that energy again beneath the Biden administration.
He additionally oversaw the water board because it responded to California’s newest drought and the air board because it put collectively a street map to succeed in carbon neutrality by 2045. California’s local weather objectives are among the many most formidable within the nation, significantly a requirement that 100% of latest automobiles bought within the state be electrical or zero-emission by 2035.
Few of the company’s main actions have been with out criticism, significantly amongst environmental justice advocates who say the state wants to maneuver extra boldly and quicker to close down fossil gas manufacturing and restrict dangerous emissions in deprived communities.
“I feel both the urgency and the impatience of communities, and we’ve tried to match that,” he said, pointing to a ban on a toxic pesticide and an ongoing effort to stop oil drilling near homes and schools.
Mabel Tsang, political director for the California Environmental Justice Alliance, thanked Blumenfeld in a statement for “uplifting oil and gas health and safety concerns.” She called Garcia, who will take over the job, a “proven climate justice leader.”
Blumenfeld and Newsom have a long relationship; he led San Francisco’s environmental department from 2003 to 2010 when Newsom was mayor.
“I know that Jared will continue to be a dynamic force for change in the fight to tackle pollution and forge a cleaner, greener future for our state and the world,” Newsom stated in a press release.
Looking to the longer term, Blumenfeld stated California must make it simpler and quicker to launch clear power tasks.
“We have to hurry up the method of getting the infrastructure within the floor to make it possible for we are able to translate our imaginative and prescient into actuality and in the meanwhile there’s method an excessive amount of pink tape,” he stated.
Blumenfeld beforehand labored as regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency throughout the Obama administration.
After he left, he launched his personal agency advising clear tech shoppers, in line with his state bio.
Garcia will likely be paid $232,000. Before becoming a member of the lawyer normal’s workplace, she was an lawyer at Earthjustice and Communities for a Better Environment.
