Biden appoints new cabinet secretaries, shuns Trump loyalists



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Until Judge Merrick B. Garland was confirmed as Attorney General, Monty Wilkinson, a longtime employee who worked closely with Eric H. Holder Jr. when he was Attorney General, acts as temp worker.

The acting deputy attorney general is John P. Carlin, who headed the Department of Justice’s national security division during the Obama administration. He only holds the post until Lisa Monaco, who has worked closely with Mr Carlin over the years, can be confirmed as Deputy Attorney General. She was a Homeland Security Advisor under Mr. Obama, and during the Trump years she and Mr. Carlin led a group studying the most difficult issues in cyber politics.

Just as the politicization of the Justice Department angered critics of Mr. Trump, the castration of the Environmental Protection Agency has sparked outrage among progressives, and it is probably not surprising that the agency is already undergoing transformation.

About a month before the day of the inauguration, a Trump official who ran the water office, Charlotte Bertrand, suddenly emerged as the woman who would take over as interim administrator if the chief of the agency resigned. When that moment came, she never had the chance to settle in the chair.

Just hours into his presidency, Mr. Biden appointed Jane Nishida, senior deputy director of the agency’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs, to lead the agency until its nominee, Michael S. Regan, North Carolina’s primary environmental regulator, be confirmed.

But long before Mr Regan reached the building, a group of young staff – a list that reads like a who’s who of climate change policy fools, many of whom have been ousted from the Obama administration. – will be at work.

Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said the team of seasoned staff members were chosen specifically to do swift work to overturn Mr Trump’s policies.

“It was clear that we were coming out of the most anti-environmental and anti-climate administration of action we have ever had,” Ms. Sittenfeld said. She added: “The need to act immediately was going to be vitally important. There has been a very intentional, very thoughtful and ambitious effort to immediately put in place highly qualified experts. “

Reporting was contributed by Lisa Friedman, Noah weiland, Glenn thrush, Helene cooper, Coral Davenport, Katie benner, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs.

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