Meet the people who might fill top environmental jobs in an Obama administration 8

Energy | EPA | Agriculture | Interior | Climate Czar

This position is traditionally given Cabinet rank, meaning the EPA administrator gets to sit at a long oval table in the West Wing. The EPA enforces (or is supposed to enforce) the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the rest of the nation's environmental laws. The next EPA administrator could also be charged with implementing a new cap-and-trade carbon emissions program, which both candidates call for (in different versions). "That would be one of the most complicated acts ever to pass Congress," said Barry Rabe, a University of Michigan environmental policy and climate change scholar. "It would call for a level of cooperation across government agencies like [the formation of] Homeland Security. And we know how difficult that has been."

Mary Nichols.

Mary Nichols
As one of the key leaders working to implement California's groundbreaking and ambitious 2006 climate law, Mary Nichols has eye-catching qualifications for this job. She's been chair of the California Air Resources Board since July 2007, reprising a role she held from 1978 to 1983 under Gov. Jerry Brown. In the early 1970s, she worked as an environmental lawyer, spending time at the Natural Resources Defense Council, then later going on to serve as secretary for California's Resources Agency and a senior official in the Clinton EPA. Her extraordinarily deep resume would be hard to match if government experience factors heavily in Obama's decision.

Katheen McGinty.

Kathleen McGinty
Pennsylvania's top environmental official worked alongside Gov. Rendell in attracting green businesses and regulating coal and manufacturers -- no small task in the rust-belt state. As head of the state's Department of Environmental Protection, Kathleen McGinty battled with Republicans and coal industry officials and succeeded in establishing tough clean-air standards. She was a long-time Al Gore aide who first worked on his Senate staff in 1988. She chaired President Clinton's Council on Environmental Quality, the first (and only) woman to hold that position. She isn't part of Obama's inner circle of advisors, but choosing her could signal to environmentalists that he takes their concerns seriously. (Read a Grist interview with McGinty.)

Dan Esty.

Dan Esty
A top energy advisor for the Obama campaign, Dan Esty would bring both EPA experience and academic policy chops. He served in George H.W. Bush's EPA, helping to craft the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act and the environmental provisions of NAFTA. He's now an environmental law professor at Yale, where he's written recently on sustainable business. In April he helped bring a group of governors to Yale to plot ways to fight climate change. "With his closeness to the Obama campaign and his record with the EPA, I think he would be one of the top contenders," said University of Florida political scientist Walter Rosenbaum. "He has a reputation as a moderate. But if you want someone who could rally the environmental troops, he could do that."

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