Mary D. Nichols ’71 to Receive Environmental Achievement Award

Washington, DC - The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) is pleased to announce that the ELI 2014 Environmental Achievement Award will be presented to Mary D. Nichols ’71, Chairman of the California Air Resources Board, appointed in 2007 by Gov. Schwarzenegger and reappointed in 2011 by Governor Brown; honored by Time Magazine in 2013 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The Award recognizes her decades of remarkable leadership in advancing innovative programs to protect and enhance the environment and our natural resources, combat climate change, and transition California to a new energy economy.

This is the 30th Anniversary of the prestigious ELI Award. The Award will be presented at the ELI Annual Award Dinner on Tuesday, October 21 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

“Mary Nichols and California are pioneers in protecting our planet from environmental threats,” said ELI Chair Edward L. Strohbehn Jr. “Their achievements are legendary. They are leading us to a better future.”

“Mary Nichols and the state of California represent the gold standard of our profession,” stated ELI President John C. Cruden, “achieving significant progress through different Administrations, leading, advancing, and protecting human health and the environment.”

Mary D. Nichols is being honored as one of the foremost environmental leaders in the nation. Since 1974, she has served in significant environmental and natural resources leadership positions in both the State and Federal Government and in both Republican and Democratic Administrations. She is Chairman of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a post she has held since 2007 when she was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and then, in 2011, reappointed by Governor Jerry Brown. In 1999, Governor Gray Davis appointed her Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. In 1993, President Clinton appointed her the EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation Programs. And in 1974, Governor Jerry Brown appointed her California’s first Secretary of Environmental Affairs and the Chairman of CARB.

Throughout her 40 years of national and state environmental and natural resource leadership, Mary Nichols has led with passion and conviction, achieving respect and admiration from environmental and business communities alike. She has been responsible for implementing effectively—and on time—some of the most complex and innovative air quality programs in the nation. At CARB, she is implementing California’s landmark and complex greenhouse gas emissions reduction program. This is the world’s only economy- wide greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program. At the same time, she is orchestrating implementation of CARB’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which requires a 10 percent reduction in carbon intensity of transportation fuels in California by 2020. In 2012, Ms. Nichols led California’s joint effort with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Department of Transportation to develop historic greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles. These rules will cut emissions of global warming gases by 34 percent and result in 75 percent fewer smog-forming emissions from new automobiles by 2025. Twenty years ago at EPA, she implemented the innovative acid rain trading program that demonstrated the effectiveness of harnessing market forces to curb air pollution emissions.

In 2013, Ms. Nichols was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by TIME Magazine and profiled as one of the world’s 100 leading artists, pioneers, titans, and icons. Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson described Mary Nichols as the “Thomas Edison of environmentalism” and “a fierce champion of cutting-edge technology that is changing her state, a nation and the world.”

Ms. Nichols graduated from Cornell University in 1966 and the Yale Law School in 1971. She was an attorney with the Los Angeles Center for Law in the Public Interest before being appointed to chair CARB in 1974. In 1989, she opened the Los Angeles office of the Natural Resources Defense Council. And in 2003, she was appointed a Professor of Law at UCLA and Director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment.