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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).