Super Eco

Photo credit: Obama-Biden Transition Project

Nancy Sutley, who served as Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the city of Los Angeles, California since 2005, is Barack Obama's nominee for the head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Sutley graduated from Cornell University and received her Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School at Harvard University. Throughout her career, Sutley has worked in policy positions within the EPA and in other agencies governing water rights and usage, first in the Clinton administration a Senior Policy Advisor to the Regional Administrator for EPA, Region 9 in San Francisco and a Special Assistant to the Administrator at the Federal EPA in Washington, D.C., and later as Deputy Secretary for Policy and Intergovernmental Relations within the California Environmental Protection Agency. In 2003, she was appointed to the California State Water Resources Control Board, an agency which protects water quality and resources throughout the state. In 2005, she became Deputy Mayor for the city of Los Angeles.

Nancy Sutley is admired as being smart, well-versed in environmental issues, capable and knowledgeable about how to work within various levels of government to get the job done. However, she is described as "painfully shy" and reserved and some critics wonder if she will be effective in a high-profile job such as the Council on Environmental Quality. Sutley is a lesbian and is Hispanic; her mother is from Argentina. It is unclear whether she was born in Queens, New York, or in South America, but she is now an American citizen.

Notable Eco Activity

Nancy Sutley's earliest role in the headlines was as a player in the electricity deregulation "debacle" of the 1990s; she has been described by one of her mentors, Winston Hickox, as being "on the cleanup crew" for the mess. In her most recent job, she persuaded the Port of LA to adopt "the most progressive clean truck rules of any port in the world" and supervised the "Million Trees" program.

Sutley has many fans, among them the National Resources Defense Council, that writes: "on several critical issues, Sutley has been an indispensable ally in our efforts to improve the region's air and water quality. We have worked with her at the federal, state, and local [levels] on clean fuels, climate, air pollution, and water policy."

• Nancy Sutley Details

  • Birth Date

    April 20, 1962

  • Born In

    United States

  • Home Page

    Unavailable

  • Lives In

    United States

  • Organizations

    Unavailable

  • Occupation

    Head of White House Council on Environmental Quality nominee