Catherine McCabe

Catherine McCabe is a public administrator and environmental lawyer who served as Acting Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from January to February 2017. She currently serves as Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Education 
McCabe graduated from Albany High School in Albany, New York in 1969. She attended Barnard College of Columbia University and earned a Bachelor of Arts in environmental sciences. She also studied toward a master's degree in environmental science at the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1977.

Career 
McCabe worked as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York. She was also an associate at the New York City law firm of Webster & Sheffield.

Department of Justice 
McCabe spent 22 years working in the Department of Justice, specializing in environmental issues.  In 2001, she became Deputy Chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section of the Department of Justice.

Environmental Protection Agency 
In 2005, she moved to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where she was the Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. After seven years with the EPA, McCabe became one of three judges on the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, where she served until 2014. McCabe then served as Deputy Regional Administrator of EPA's Region 2, covering New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. McCabe also served as Acting Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) from January to May 2009 and Acting Regional Administrator of EPA's Region 2 from February to October 2017. 

She was selected by the outgoing Obama Administration to serve as Acting EPA Administrator starting on January 20, 2017 until President Donald Trump's EPA nominee, Scott Pruitt, was confirmed in February 2017. Following his confirmation, she returned to Region 2 to serve as Acting Regional Administrator.

During her time as Acting EPA Administrator, McCabe commented that the Trump administration's hiring freeze was creating challenges for the agency's work. Nevertheless, McCabe stated that agency staff would "continue to do our best to ensure that this agency’s decisions and actions are based on our two bedrock principles: carrying out the law and ensuring that the best science informs all that we do.”

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection 
In December 2017, New Jersey governor-elect Phil Murphy announced he would nominate McCabe to serve as Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Environmental groups New Jersey Sierra Club and Clean Water Action supported McCabe's nomination, which was approved on June 7, 2018. On August 30, 2018, McCabe signed an Administrative Order that closed "all lands owned, managed or otherwise controlled" by the  New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to black bear hunting. The black bear hunting moratorium was part of then candidate for Governor Phil Murphy's campaign.

Personal life 
McCabe is married with three children. She and her husband have a home in Ocean City, New Jersey, which was hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

References

Category:State cabinet secretaries of New Jersey
Category:Administrators of the United States Environmental Protection Agency
Category:Barnard College alumni
Category:Columbia Law School alumni
Category:Environmental lawyers
Category:Trump administration cabinet members
Category:United States Department of Justice lawyers
Category:Lawyers from Albany, New York
Category:People from Ocean City, New Jersey
Category:Living people
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)