EPA said Thursday that President Biden intends to name California Public Utilities Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves to run the region of the agency that includes California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii, implementing the administration’s environmental agenda in the far West.
Guzman Aceves has served for five years on the CPUC. She worked previously as former Gov. Jerry Brown’s deputy legislative affairs secretary and for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and the United Farm Workers. Much of her focus at the commission has been on providing clean energy to underserved communities and preventing disconnections of basic utilities.
CPUC Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves | CPUC“Given Martha’s extensive background in successfully delivering access to underserved communities, I am confident she is an excellent choice to lead our Region 9 team,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. “Martha is an experienced leader that values economic justice and will represent the best interests of the residents in the region.”
Guzman Aceves said she was “honored to be appointed by President Biden to serve as administrator of EPA Region 9 under the leadership of Administrator Regan. And I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the resilient staff at Region 9 as we tackle the chronic and emerging environmental issues in our communities.”
The move continues a series of transitions at the CPUC, an agency tasked with ensuring resource adequacy, preventing utilities from igniting wildfires and shepherding the state through its transition to 100% clean energy by 2045.
CPUC President Marybel Batjer announced in September that that she planned to step down at the end of the year with five years left in her seven-year term. Gov. Gavin Newsom in late November named his senior energy adviser, Alice Reynolds, as the commission’s next president. (See California PUC President to Step Down and Calif. Governor Names Next CPUC President.)
In December 2020, Newsom named then-CPUC Commissioner Liane Randolph as chair of the California Air Resources Board, which oversees vehicle emissions and other types of air pollution. Randolph replaced retiring Chair Mary Nichols, whom Biden reportedly was considering to head EPA at the time. Instead, he appointed Regan, then head of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality. (See EPA Nominee Regan Receives Bipartisan Support.)
EPA on Thursday also announced the appointments of Earthea Nance and Meg McCollister as administrators of its regions 6 and 7, respectively. Nance is an environmental engineer and an associate professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University; Region 6 covers Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. McCollister is an independent consultant based in Kansas City, Mo., where she serves “as an adviser and strategic thinker in areas including environmental, health and social improvement initiatives, as well as communication strategies,” according to EPA. Region 7 covers Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.