US Senate panel confirms Mallory to lead White House environmental council 

A US Senate panel on Wednesday confirmed Brenda Mallory to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a key role that will coordinate President Joe Biden's climate change and environmental justice policies. 

The Senate Environment and Public Works committee voted 11-9 to approve Mallory, who previously served as general counsel of the council and until recently was head of regulatory affairs at the green advocacy group Southern Environmental Law Centre. 

The Council on Environmental Quality coordinates White House energy and environmental policies across federal agencies, and can have broad influence on the outlook for big infrastructure projects from pipelines to industrial facilities. 

In an interview ahead of her nomination last December, Mallory said she hoped the council would reverse changes made by the Trump administration to the National Environmental Policy Act, a major environmental permitting law, that sought to ease and speed up approval of big energy infrastructure projects. 

The Trump-era changes eased requirements to weigh climate change impacts of a project and limited the amount of public comment, a move seen as diminishing the voice of low-income and minority communities that are often in the way of these projects. 

“I am hoping at top of the priority list for CEQ is addressing changes Trump made to how CEQ implements NEPA,” she said. 

The Senate panel also voted 11-9 to advance the nomination of Janet McCabe to be deputy Environmental Protection Agency administrator, another key environmental regulatory role. 

McCabe previously served as the top air and water regulator at the EPA under then-President Barack Obama and played a key role drafting regulations like the Clean Power Plan and vehicle emission standards. 

The nominations will now face a full Senate vote. The timing of the vote has not yet been announced. 

(With inputs from agencies)