Carol Browner

EPA Administrator Nomination and confirmation After the 1992 presidential election, Browner served as transition director for Vice President-elect Gore. President-elect Bill Clinton announced her as his choice for Environmental Protection Agency head on December 11, 1992. While both Clinton and Gore had criticized the George H. W. Bush administration's commitment to environmental protection during the campaign, the selection of Browner – who was described by The Washington Post as having "the mind and training of an attorney-legislator but the soul of an activist" – was seen as an indication that Gore's ardent environmentalism had won out over Clinton's more pro-business mindset. The pick, along with several others of Gore protégés that Clinton made, helped solidify the vice president's position within the administration. At her confirmation hearings before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Browner came across as pragmatic and allayed fears that she would be excessively influenced by or tied to Gore. She was confirmed by the unanimous consent of the United States Senate on January 21, 1993.

She and Podhorzer returned to Takoma Park, Maryland, and he continued to work at Citizen Action. Her long-term goal was "to leave the world a slightly better place", and she practiced various environmentally beneficial practices at home.

Browner found criticism from both sides of environmental issues Many of her legislative desires had to take a back seat to the higher-priority 1993 Clinton health care plan. and to roll back other environmental regulations. She was able to work in a bipartisan manner, though, with Republicans in helping craft amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act and passage of the Food Quality Protection Act. Her bureaucratic effectiveness illustrated what one of her top aides characterized as her talent: "an extreme focus on a single issue where she is completely certain that she is right". while the Common Sense Initiative in 1994 was targeted at efforts involving entire industry sectors, rather than dealing with issues on a crisis-by-crisis, pollutant-by-pollutant basis. Project XL had mixed results, with some success stories but an uncertain legal basis regarding enforcement and less active participation than envisioned. Browner denied the accusation, saying the charge was an attempt to keep her from debating a possible rollback of health and environmental protections.

As EPA Administrator, Browner started the agency's successful Brownfields Program in 1995. The program helped facilitate cleanups of brownfield lands and their contaminated facilities, especially in urban areas, by empowering states, communities, and assorted stakeholders in economic development.

Second four years Perhaps Browner's biggest triumph The decision came after months of public review of the proposed new standards that became the most divisive environmental debate of the decade. There was a long and fierce internal discussion within the administration, with opposition from the president's economic advisers echoing strong objections from some industry groups who said the costs of the new standards would far outweigh any benefits Some within the administration objected to her unwillingness to modify her stance and even suggested she be fired for insubordination. As the decision was announced, one which would affect hundreds of American cities and towns, Browner and the EPA also took action against air pollution caused by motor vehicles, issuing standards in 1999 that for the first time included light trucks and sport utility vehicles to meet the same emission standards as cars, and that would require the sulfur content of gasoline to be reduced by 90 percent over five years.

During her tenure, Browner also began efforts to deal with global warming, giving the EPA authority to regulate carbon emissions causing climate change, although the EPA under the following George W. Bush administration chose not to use that authority.

During Browner's tenure, there were many reports from African American employees of racism directed at them from a network of "good old boys" who dominated the agency's middle management. The most known of these reports involved policy specialist Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, who in 1997 filed suit against the agency; in 2000, the court found the EPA guilty of discrimination against Coleman-Adebayo, and awarded her $300,000. Browner emphasized that minorities had tripled in number in the agency's senior rank during her time as administrator, but was unable to explain why the culprits in Coleman-Adebayo's case had not been dismissed and in some cases had been promoted.

In the final days of the Clinton administration, D.C. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the EPA to preserve under the Freedom of Information Act all documents possibly relevant to last-minute EPA regulation issuances. In 2003, Lamberth found the EPA in contempt for not having preserved Browner's files, but did not find Browner or other officials in contempt. – and in the type of position that often sees turnover every three or four years. Robert W. Collin, author of a 2005 text on the agency, assessed her as "one of the ablest administrators ever to lead the EPA", and wrote that she was "completely fearless in her engagement with controversial environmental issues". Clinton himself later stated that Browner had accumulated a long list of important achievements. took place on June 21, 2007, in Riverhead, New York. Downey heads a lobbying firm representing clients in the energy industry.

Browner testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in April 2007 alt=A pale-skinned woman in her early fifties is sitting behind a brown table, speaking, with a microphone and a pitcher of water. She has brown hair around the ear down to her shoulder, and is wearing a salmon-colored suit jacket with a double-strand of some kind of necklace. A balding, middle-aged man and a stack of some papers can be seen behind her.

Browner joined the board of the National Audubon Society in 2001 and became chair in 2003; her term expired in 2008. She also joined the board of the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization founded by Gore in 2006. including those for carbon offsets and the CDM Gold Standard. She was also on the founding board of the Center for American Progress although the commission's web site still had her listed as a member in January 2009.

Her income in 2008 was between $1 million and $5 million from lobbying firm Downey McGrath Group, where her husband was a principal.

Browner retained a political voice during her business career, describing the George W. Bush administration as "the worst environmental administration ever".

On December 15, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama named Browner as Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Officially known as the Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, she acted as a coordinator for environmental, energy, climate, transport and related matters for the federal government. Her position was sometimes informally described as the "Energy Czar" or the "Climate Czar". (The form "Czarina" was sometimes also used. Her participation on the Commission for a Sustainable World Society drew criticism from some Republican members of Congress, a former legislative director for Senator John Kerry.

The early months of the Obama administration found her working well with the Cabinet members. and also was a member of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry that bailed out American automakers. She successfully urged incorporation of tens of billions of dollars for renewable energy programs into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Environmentalists viewed her as a critical liaison to the White House. By the next month, she moderated her concern but expressed opposition to any congressional "slicing and dicing" that would separate energy and climate concerns. Attempts to pass any kind of climate legislation collapsed in July 2010 due to lack of enough votes in the Senate; Browner appeared on behalf of the administration and said, "Obviously, everyone is disappointed that we do not yet have an agreement on comprehensive legislation." At other times she became philosophical, later saying that she would quote the key lines from one of The Rolling Stones' most well-known songs to Obama: "You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need." In late May 2010 she assessed the spill as "probably the biggest environmental disaster we have ever faced in this country" and said that the administration was "prepared for the worst". She added that "I think what the American people need to know that it is possible we will have oil leaking from this well until August, when the relief wells will be finished." Mike Allen of Politico later wrote, "[Browner's] calm, authoritative television presence during the BP oil disaster made her one of the few officials whose stature was enhanced in the aftermath of the Gulf catastrophe." But that did not come to pass. Browner said of her unexpected decision, "[there's] no back story – it was just time to go" and that she felt "honored to have a second ... chance to serve". League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski characterized Browner as a "tenacious advocate on our issues" who would be "sorely missed", while a member of the law and energy industry lobbying firm Bracewell & Giuliani said Browner's exit was a good development and that "Her departure may be part of a legitimate effort to pay careful attention to addressing some of the real regulatory obstacles in the way of job creation in the United States." Her general responsibilities were taken over by her second-in-command, Heather Zichal, from a position within the U.S. Domestic Policy Council. While the move was part of an overall effort to get rid of Obama's "czars", Browner was a particular focus of it. Representative Steve Scalise, who led the effort, said of Browner, "Let her leave, and take the funding, too." Obama issued a signing statement protesting the move and saying he would not abide by it, but the point was largely moot as the positions in question, including the Browner one, had already been moved inside the Domestic Policy Council.

Return to business and advocacy Browner rejoined the Center for American Progress in April 2011 as a Distinguished Senior Fellow and a member of the organization's executive committee. She also rejoined the Albright firm, now known due to merger as the Albright Stonebridge Group, as a Senior Counselor whose responsibilities included providing strategic services to clients in assorted areas of environmental impact.

In July 2013, Browner was named to the board of directors of Bunge Limited, a global agribusiness and food company. In November 2013, she was named to the advisory board of Opower, a software provider to the utility industry. In January 2014, she joined the Global Ocean Commission, an initiative to restore oceanic health and productivity, which issued its final report in 2016. In March 2014, she was elected as chair of the board of directors of the League of Conservation Voters.

In April 2014 she joined the Leadership Council of Nuclear Matters, an industry-backed group that advocates for nuclear power as a means to combat climate change. She has acknowledged that looking at herself twenty years earlier, she would "probably not be pro-nuclear", but said, "I think climate change is the biggest problem the world has ever faced" and it would simply be "irresponsible" not to consider nuclear energy as part of the solution.

After a different administration had been in power for a year, Browner was one of several former EPA heads who expressed alarm at the effects that new head Scott Pruitt had had upon the agency. She said that while the George W. Bush administration had treated the EPA with a "sort of benign neglect", in contrast, "Under Pruitt, what they're doing is conscientiously tearing the place down." She was especially concerned that reversing budget cuts would be difficult and that a successful full repeal of the second-term Obama administration's Clean Power Plan could set back an effort to resume combating human-caused global warming some "20 to 30 years". She did not think that the replacing of Pruitt with Andrew R. Wheeler made anything better; overall, she said the actions of this administration were "worse than disappointing. I mean, it is stunning and very alarming." She said of her role there, "So we are looking at, how do we make sure that a carbon reduction plan includes micro-mobility? How do we understand what it means to get people out of a car for the last couple of miles?"

Browner joined the law firm of Covington & Burling in September 2021, in the position of Senior Of Counsel in the firm's Environmental, Social, and Governance Practice, as part of a trend of ESG-related concerns becoming important to corporate clients.

Awards and honors In April 1997, Browner received the Outstanding Mother of the Year Award from the National Mother's Day Committee "for her dedication to providing 'children with a safer, healthier world.'". In September 1997 Browner was honored as one of the 47 Distinguished Alumnae of University of Florida. Browner also has received Glamour magazine's Woman of the Year Award, the Ambulatory Pediatric Association's Advocate for Children Award, the South Florida Chapter of the Audubon Society's Guy M. Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Lifetime Environmental Achievement Award from the New York State Bar Association. In 2000, she received the American Lung Association's President's Award for leadership towards "the toughest action in a generation to safeguard public health from the threats posed by air pollution."