Dem Diversity Blues (2)

Two days ago we reported on how the intersectional diversicrats are wreaking havoc on Joe Biden’s selections for senior appointments, and today the New York Times returns to the subject to confirm one of the victims of the diversicrats: Mary Nichols, who had been the obvious choice to run the EPA until she ran afoul of the racial justice fanatics.

When Joseph R. Biden, Jr. won the presidential election, his top candidate to lead the nation’s most powerful environmental agency appeared clear: Mary D. Nichols, California’s clean air regulator and arguably the country’s most experienced climate change official, was seen as a lock to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

Now Mr. Biden’s team is scrambling to find someone else, according to several people who have spoken with the presidential transition team. The chief reason: This month, a group of more than 70 environmental justice groups wrote to the Biden transition charging that Ms. Nichols has a “bleak track record in addressing environmental racism.”

The environmental justice groups cited Ms. Nichols’s role in pushing California’s cap-and-trade program, which is designed to broadly reduce pollution of planet-warming greenhouse gases — but disproportionately does so at the expense, the groups said, of communities of color by exposing them to more pollutants like smog and soot.* . . .

While Mr. Biden had expected that Ms. Nichols would be criticized by Republicans for her history of pushing tough regulations on industries, he was caught off guard by the intense objections to Ms. Nichols from liberals.

Heh. I first ran across Mary Nichols 30 years ago, when she was with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and was shocked at how radical and power mad she is. I wonder whether environmental groups will take any lessons from this, for I can assure you that the old mainline groups like EDF, NRDC, the Sierra Club, etc., all love Nichols and want her as head of the EPA. But they are terrified of the racial justice groups, even though they know that most of their claims about “environmental racism” in California under Nichols are unfounded or grossly exaggerated. But live by the green exaggeration, I guess you die by it too. I’m sure whoever Biden finds will be just as bad ideologically, but I believe the scuttling of the highly experienced and capable Nichols is a win for our side.

* For the record, “smog” and “soot” (soot?—who still uses that term?) levels in California continue to fall, even in poor neighborhoods.

Chaser: This from the Times story is comedy gold:

The influence of those groups, and Mr. Biden’s reactions to their push, appears to be another signal of the increasing tensions between the left and moderate factions of the Democratic Party. Mr. Biden has already been subject to criticism from the left for some of his cabinet picks, even as he explicitly attempts to build a cabinet of racial and gender diversity.

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