The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970. To date, more than 100 nations around the world have enacted national environmental policies modeled after NEPA.
The Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970 is a United States environmental law which was passed to work in conjunction with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). One of the two major purposes of the Act was to authorize the creation of an Office of Environmental Quality to provide the professional and administrative staff needed for the Council on Environmental Quality. The second major purpose was to "assure that each Federal department and agency conducting or supporting public works activities which affect the environment shall implement the policies under existing law". To accomplish these purposes, the act gave more responsibilities to the chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality in his new role as director of the Office of Environmental Quality.
Philip A. Cooney is a former member of the administration of United States President George W. Bush. Before being appointed to chair the Council on Environmental Quality, he was a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. He was accused of doctoring and changing scientific reports about global warming by other agencies. He then resigned his position and denied any wrongdoing.
Lisa Perez Jackson is an American chemical engineer who served as the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2009 to 2013. She was the first African American to hold that position.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is a conservative think tank based in Austin, Texas. The organization was founded in 1989 by James R. Leininger, who sought intellectual support for his education reform ideas, including public school vouchers. Projects of the organization include Right on Crime, which is focused on criminal justice reform, and Fueling Freedom, which seeks to "explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels" by rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change.
The environmental policy of the United States is a federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the United States. The goal of environmental policy is to protect the environment for future generations while interfering as little as possible with the efficiency of commerce or the liberty of the people and to limit inequity in who is burdened with environmental costs. As his first official act bringing in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon signed the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law on New Years Day, 1970. Also in the same year, America began celebrating Earth Day, which has been called "the big bang of U.S. environmental politics, launching the country on a sweeping social learning curve about ecological management never before experienced or attempted in any other nation." NEPA established a comprehensive US national environmental policy and created the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement for “major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment.” Author and consultant Charles H. Eccleston has called NEPA, the world's “environmental Magna Carta”.
David J. Hayes is an American attorney and legal scholar who serves in the Biden Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy. Hayes has led White House work on clean energy deployment issues, climate resilience and greenhouse gas emission reduction and carbon sequestration initiatives. Hayes also has assisted in developing and implementing the climate-related provisions included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Nancy Helen Sutley led the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) for five years during the administration of Barack Obama. She was unanimously confirmed for that post by the United States Senate on January 22, 2009. The CEQ coordinates federal environmental efforts and works with agencies other than White House offices in the development of environmental policies and initiatives; the chair serves as the principal environmental policy advisor to the president.
Rosina M. Bierbaum is currently the Roy F. Westin Chair in Natural Economics and Research Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. She is also a professor and former dean at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE). She was hired in October 2001, by then-University of Michigan President, Lee Bollinger. She is also the current Chair of The Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) that provides independent scientific and technical advice to the GEF on its policies, strategies, programs, and projects.
The climate change policy of the United States has major impacts on global climate change and global climate change mitigation. This is because the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world after China, and is among the countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person in the world. In total, the United States has emitted over 400 billion metric tons of greenhouse gasses, more than any country in the world.
Charles Hugh Warren was an American lawyer and Democratic politician who served in the California State Assembly from 1963 to 1977 and held a Cabinet-level position as chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) under U.S. President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1979.
Regina McCarthy is an American air quality expert who served as the first White House national climate advisor from 2021 to 2022. She previously served as the thirteenth Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2013 to 2017.
Christy Goldfuss is an American government official who chaired the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) within the Executive Office of the President from 2015 to 2017. She served as Deputy Director of the National Park Service in the Obama administration. She also worked as a legislative staff member for the House Committee on Natural Resources and as a reporter.
Andrew R. Wheeler is an American attorney who served as the 15th administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2019 to 2021. He served as the deputy administrator from April to July 2018, and served as the acting administrator from July 2018 to February 2019. He has been a senior advisor to Governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin since March 2022. He previously worked in the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels, representing coal magnate Robert E. Murray and lobbying against the Obama Administration's environmental regulations. Wheeler served as chief counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and to the chairman U.S. senator James Inhofe, prominent for his rejection of climate change. Wheeler is a critic of limits on greenhouse gas emissions and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Kathleen Hartnett White is a Republican American former government official and environmental policy advisor. White currently serves as a senior fellow at the free-market think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation. She was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Council on Environmental Quality; the nomination was later withdrawn.
Mike Boots is a former government official who served as Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality during part of Barack Obama's presidency. He served in the position from February 2014 – March 2015.
Mary Bridget Neumayr is an American government official, who served as the chair of the Council on Environmental Quality from 2019 to 2021. She was appointed to the position by President Donald Trump in January 2019 and confirmed by the United States Senate.
The White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy is an office within the White House Office that is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. It is headed by the Assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor, which is president's chief advisor on domestic climate change policy. In addition, the National Climate Advisor serves as vice-chair of the National Climate Task Force.
Brenda Mallory is an American lawyer specializing in environmental law who is the current chair of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Biden Administration. She previously served as director of regulatory policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center, and helped lead the Climate 21 Project.
The environmental policy of the Joe Biden administration includes a series of laws, regulations, and programs introduced by United States President Joe Biden since he took office in January 2021. Many of the actions taken by the Biden administration reversed the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
