Mary Nichols on Battling Smog

Flanigan's Eco-Logic

In this Convo of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Mary Nichols, who served as the chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for a total of 18 years. She has served on the Board under Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. (1975–82 and 2010–18), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (2007–2010) and Governor Gavin Newsom (2019–2020). She also served as California’s Secretary for Natural Resources (1999–2003), appointed by Gov. Gray Davis. Mary is widely recognized for a career as one of the world’s most important environmental regulators. Over a career as an environmental lawyer spanning over 45 years, she has played a key role in California and the nation’s progress toward healthy air.

She and Ted discuss her background, discussing the late 60s and early 70s in Ithaca, New York. She majored in Russian Literature, received her B.A. from Cornell University (1966), worked in journalism at the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) straight out of university, then attended law school, receiving her J.D. from Yale Law School (1971), devoting her career to fighting air pollution from then on. She shares that her interest in the environment came about as a result of having been involved in the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, believing in the need for activism at the community level.

After law school, she worked as an attorney for the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles (1971-74) where she brought the first litigation under the then recently passed Clean Air Act. From 1993-1997, Nichols served as Assistant Administrator of Air and Radiation for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. Her efforts there led to the first federal air quality standard regulating potentially deadly fine-particle pollution and the acid rain trading program.

Nichols brings a large area of expertise drawing from her many other positions. She served as the California Secretary for the Natural Resources Agency from 1997-2003, as Executive Director of Environment Now Foundation; founder of the Los Angeles Office of Natural Resources Defense Council; Professor and Director at UCLA Institute of Environment; and co-founder of the first environmental justice working group, a multi-ethnic forum for leaders from traditional environmental and community-based organizations to address issues of environmental equity.

During her leadership at the CARB, California became a national leader at developing clean energy and clean transportation solutions that many other states and nations have adopted. She shares with Ted that her current climate-related work is focused in China, travelling there twice a year in her capacity as a member of the board of The Energy Foundation.