On March 4, Barack Obama nominated Gina McCarthy, a UMass Boston alumna from Dorchester, to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during his second term in office. McCarthy, who graduated from UMass Boston with a BA in anthropology in 1976, is currently the assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.

McCarthy has worked as an advisor on environmental issues under 5 different Massachusetts governors, including Mitt Romney. She has also headed the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

McCarthy began her work for the EPA in 2009. In 2010, when McCarthy delivered the keynote speech at UMass Boston’s Green Education for the Next Generation Gala, she told the audience, “I owe the University of Massachusetts Boston big time.”

A prestigious Washington-insider magazine, the National Journal, has called her “a political pragmatist who works with and listens to the polluting industries.” However, McCarthy is not popular with Senate Republicans.

On March 18, Senator Roy Blunt (Republican-Missouri) put a hold on her nomination. Blunt is waiting on an Environmental Impact Statement for the St. Johns Bayou and New Madrid floodway project. The EPA, along with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, is responsible for the Environmental Impact Statement, and Blunt intends to block McCarthy’s promotion until he gets a timeline telling him when a draft will be released.