Governor-elect Phil Murphy has selected the EPA’s regional administrator to lead New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection.
If she’s confirmed as DEP Commissioner, Catherine McCabe says one of her priorities will be focusing on climate change.
“It’s over time for us to start taking some action on that and to building up the shore resiliency. There have been a lot of efforts. The federal government has been part of that as well as the state, but we haven’t done enough and we haven’t done it fast enough.”
Murphy says McCabe will help him grow a clean-energy economy.
“We remain committed to a new Energy Master Plan, one that we have not had for a long time in this state, that would see our see our state achieve 100% clean energy by the year 2050 with importantly achievable shorter-term benchmarks.
Environmental group leaders say McCabe is an excellent choice.
Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, believes she’ll hold polluters accountable.
“New Jersey has been slow on taking advantage of our opportunities to cleanup historic legacy pollution under the previous administration, and there’s a backlog of work to catch up on. I think she’s got the skills and talent and experience to get that done and go beyond. We need to make up for a lot over the years.”
New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel says McCabe is a no-nonsense professional who will change the state’s direction in dealing with environmental issues.
“The current administration has basically played games with polluters, letting them off the hook, rolling back regulations, denying climate change. We think that she will be the opposite, meaning she believes in dealing with climate change and sea level rise, getting windmills off our coast, and cleaning up toxic sites.”