Michael Regan, who has led the Environmental Safety Company all through President Joe Biden‘s four-year time period, stated Friday he’ll depart the company Dec. 31, about three weeks earlier than Biden’ leaves workplace.

In a letter to company staff, Regan stated he was happy with the EPA‘s work to confront local weather change, limit air and water air pollution and spend tens of billions of {dollars} underneath the administration’s landmark local weather regulation to spur clear power improvement.

These efforts slashed dangerous greenhouse fuel emissions and different air pollution that endanger communities, “delivering vital financial and public well being advantages in areas lengthy overburdened by air pollution,″ he stated. The company additionally created hundreds of jobs and lowered prices for households, he stated.

Regan, the primary Black man to go the EPA, famous that the company elevated the position of environmental justice underneath his watch and “positioned it on the middle of our decision-making.” Regan went on a “Journey to Justice” tour from Mississippi to Texas in 2021. The five-day journey from Jackson, Miss., to New Orleans and Houston highlighted low-income, principally minority communities adversely affected by a long time of business air pollution.

Regan, 48, a North Carolina native who headed the state Division of Environmental High quality earlier than taking up at EPA in early 2021, stated he’ll return to the state along with his household.

Jane Nishida, EPA’s assistant administrator for the Workplace of Worldwide and Tribal Affairs, will function performing administrator for the ultimate weeks of the time period, Regan stated. Regan’s chief of workers, Dan Utech, will function performing deputy administrator.

Regan, who labored at EPA earlier in his profession, thanked Biden for naming him to the submit, including: “Ten years in the past, I might have by no means imagined coming again to guide EPA alongside such dedicated and devoted workers.”

Up to now 4 years, the company has “made big strides to take away lead pipes from communities and defend consuming water sources for hundreds of thousands of individuals in America,” Regan wrote. “We have now acted on perpetually chemical compounds like PFAS to guard households from air pollution within the merchandise we use, the water we drink, and within the backyards the place our kids play.”

EPA additionally “reinvigorated enforcement efforts” after 4 years of environmental rollbacks underneath former President Donald Trump, “holding polluters accountable and ensuring they pay for cleanups of legacy air pollution websites throughout the nation,” Regan stated.

EPA has banned harmful chemical compounds comparable to asbestos and trichloroethylene, often known as TCE, and responded to environmental and public well being emergencies throughout the nation, together with in Asheville, North Carolina, and Tampa, Florida, in simply the final yr, Regan stated.

The company additionally employed hundreds of recent staff, together with lots of of scientists who left the company throughout the first Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump, who has named former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to be EPA administrator, has stated he’ll once more slash environmental laws when he returns to workplace for a second time period subsequent month. Trump additionally has stated he’ll goal what he calls onerous guidelines on energy crops, factories and oil and pure fuel manufacturing imposed underneath Biden.

Whereas not mentioning Trump or Zeldin, Regan informed workers that “the work continues. I’ve nothing however optimism and religion in your dedication to proceed delivering public well being and environmental protections for each particular person on this nice nation.”