Gina McCarthy, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator and the nation’s first White House climate advisor, and former EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe spoke to about 100 people about their work and the environmental state of the world at an event on Thursday at the IU Maurer School of Law.
The event, “Advocating for the Environment as if our Future Depended upon it: A Conversation with Gina McCarthy,” was hosted by Advocates for Science at IU, Concerned Scientists at IU and the Environmental Law Society.
McCabe and McCarthy worked together for over seven years at the EPA and then together under the Biden administration.
McCarthy was the EPA administrator under the Obama administration from 2013-17 and spearheaded various projects to aid in the implementation of President Barack Obama’s climate change plan.
Following her role under Obama, President Joe Biden appointed McCarthy to serve as the first White House climate advisor from 2021-22.
McCabe served as deputy administrator of the EPA from 2021-24, overseeing all aspects of management of the agency. McCabe was also a professor at the IU Indianapolis McKinney School of Law from 2017-21 and directed the IU Environmental Resilience Institute.
During the discussion, McCarthy reflected on the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that aimed to limit global warming. The U.S. was one of 195 parties at the UN Climate Change Conference that first signed the treaty in 2016, but the U.S. withdrew from it under both President Donald Trump’s terms.
McCarthy said she believes that the U.S. has a lot of work to do.
“We’re not where we need to be, but man, we have come a long way together,” McCarthy said.
The U.S. first withdrew in 2020, then rejoined in 2021 under the Biden administration.
Under Biden, the U.S committed to reducing emissions by 66% compared to 2005 levels by 2035. But a 2026 report found the U.S. is only on track to reduce emissions by 35% or less by that deadline.
In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order that began the second withdrawal process, stating that the agreement did not “reflect the country’s values or contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives.”
The U.S officially withdrew Jan. 27, according to a New York Times article.
At the end of McCarthy and McCabe’s conversation, the two fielded questions from the audience.
An IU student asked about McCabe and McCarthy’s roles in the Inflation Reduction Act, noting that both women were working under Biden during that time.
The Inflation Reduction Act is a 10-year plan that changed tax laws in hopes to reduce carbon emissions by around 40% by 2030. IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a 2024 news release that the “IRS has made significant progress in the 10-year journey.”
The plan is continuing under the Trump administration.
“The Inflation Reduction Act was the one thing I went to the White House to do,” McCarthy said. “It was his (Biden’s) idea to look at the development of legislation that would basically outline all of the clean energy opportunities and the benefits associated with that, and in the end, the Inflation Reduction Act was a conglomeration of that work.”
McCarthy led the project alongside a team of 10-12 economists, she said.
Throughout the conversation, McCabe and McCarthy focused on the importance of environmental and legislative change at a local level. They mentioned how mayors and governors should understand the local communities' needs and wants in order to make effective change.
“States are very actively engaged,” McCarthy said. “Local level is doing wonderful, I can give you a hundred examples of the way in which those communities have found a way to protect their own constituents, to save their constituents’ money, to make sure there’s healthy air for them to breathe.”
McCarthy said it is the local government’s responsibility to understand the community members, and that it’s exciting to watch work being done at the local level. She feels that the work being done at the federal level under the Trump administration is not sufficient.
McCarthy has worked with international organizations to ensure that the United States is represented in their environmental efforts, she said.
“Basically, this president dropped out of the UN, this president had done everything possible to say we’re not part of the world, we’re just the best country, and that’s what we are,” McCarthy said. “Now, to me, that is enormously stupid, but it’s enormously embarrassing to me personally.”
