McCarthy Confirmation to Lead EPA Clears Way for Rules

Gina McCarthy’s confirmation to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency puts the former Republican aide in charge of developing wide-ranging climate-change rules that business group oppose.

McCarthy, as the agency’s assistant administrator, had directed clean-air rulemaking in President Barack Obama’s first term, forcing coal-fired power plants to curb mercury emissions, imposing new standards on boilers in paper mills and setting limits on pollution from cement plants. She will write the first rules limiting carbon emissions from power plants.