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7 Regul. Rev. Depth 1 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/rgyrvidh7 and id is 1 raw text is: 














             GET   MOVING WITH CLIMATE ACTION


                          Gina   McCarthyt


    It is time to stop treating public health and environmental protection as
a matter of partisan politics.
    The U.S. Environmental  Protection Agency  (EPA)  is not a birds and
bunnies  agency; it's a people agency  dedicated to protecting the most
vulnerable among  us-many of whom are kids. The agency's job is to
deliver clean air and drinking water, clean up contaminated places, ensure
our rivers and streams are fishable and swimmable, and protect consumers
from exposure  to harmful chemicals like pesticides and toxics in products.
That mission is now portrayed by many as partisan and no longer necessary
or advisable to pursue.
    People need to be protected from exposure to pollution whether they are
Democrats  or Republicans. Although I worked for President Barack Obama
and I am a Democrat, I worked for six governors over the past 25 years and
all but one was a Republican. And each one  of them-regardless  of party
affiliation-took his or her obligation to protect this mission seriously and
made  progress in advancing public health and environmental protections,
including former Massachusetts Governor  Mitt Romney,  who approved  the
release of a statewide Climate Protection Plan.1
    Throughout our history, both Democrats and Republicans have understood
that we fundamentally must protect people's right to live healthy lives. It was
Republican President Theodore Roosevelt who established important national
parks and signed the Antiquities Act into law.2 Teddy would be rolling in his

    t Professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and director of the Center for
Climate, Health, and the Global Environment. The author served as the Administrator of
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2013 to 2017. This essay is an edited
version of the 2018 Distinguished Lecture on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania
Law School.
    1 Commonwealth  of Massachusetts Office for Commonwealth Development,
Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan (2004), https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/
health/documents/mass-climate-plan.pdf.
    2 Theodore Roosevelt and the National Park System, U.S. NAT'L PARK SERV., https://
www.nps.gov/thrb/learn/historyculture/trandthenpsystem.htm; 16 U.S.C. §§ 431-433 (1906).

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