Mary Nichols

Re "A cloud around the state's air chief," Opinion, Sept. 5 Richard Nemec criticizes Mary Nichols, our new California Air Resources Board chair, for holding stocks in energy companies even though she has already indicated she intends to have her investments placed in a blind trust. As chair of the same agency years ago and as a high-level federal official, Nichols led California into a new era of cleaner air.

Mary Nichols, the savvy negotiator who is leading California's complex effort to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, is reportedly a candidate to head President-elect Barack Obama's Environmental Protection Agency. Nichols, 63, is chairwoman of the state's powerful Air Resources Board. She was a high-level EPA official under President Clinton, serving as the agency's assistant administrator for air and radiation. Appointed to head the state air board by Gov.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought Tuesday to quiet turmoil at the state's air board and reassert his commitment to the environment by appointing an official from past Democratic administrations to the board's top position. Mary Nichols will take over the embattled Air Resources Board, which she chaired 30 years ago under Gov. Jerry Brown. She also served as secretary of resources under Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and as a high-ranking environmental official in the Clinton administration.

Re "The future gets real," editorial, June 26 Here is one conservative who still doubts that humans contribute to supposed global warming. Global warming is more hysteria than science. Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, should check herself into the funny farm if she thinks these new climate-change regulations will help the state's economy. There is nothing preventing anyone from doing the things now that she thinks will increase income, so why isn't it happening?

Gov. Gray Davis on Thursday appointed California Resources Secretary Mary Nichols to the state Coastal Commission, angering another longtime Davis appointee whom he removed to make room on the powerful board that governs development along the state's 1,100-mile shoreline. Nichols cannot be sworn in as a commissioner until she officially steps down as resources secretary on Nov. 14, the Friday before Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger takes office.

Mary Nichols still recalls her first visit to Los Angeles in 1969. It was during a cross-country vacation in a Volkswagen Beetle with another Yale Law School student: "We got to Los Angeles in the late afternoon. I remember descending into the basin, driving west toward Sunset Boulevard and being astonished by the peculiar color of the air. It was a kind of flaming orange--not a natural color, but a peculiar, day-glo, chemical kind of orange."

Gov.-elect Gray Davis on Wednesday named Mary Nichols, a pioneer of the state's environmental movement, as California's new resources secretary.

Mary Nichols Named to EPA Post: Nichols, senior staff attorney and director of the Los Angeles office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, has been named pending confirmation to head the air and radiation division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Nichols, a pioneer in environmental law, was previously a member of the California Air Resources Board and state secretary for environmental affairs.

Re "The future gets real," editorial, June 26 Here is one conservative who still doubts that humans contribute to supposed global warming. Global warming is more hysteria than science. Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, should check herself into the funny farm if she thinks these new climate-change regulations will help the state's economy. There is nothing preventing anyone from doing the things now that she thinks will increase income, so why isn't it happening?

A Los Angeles City Council panel on Tuesday endorsed Mayor Tom Bradley's appointment of environmental lawyer Mary Nichols to the Water and Power Commission, but cautioned her against attempting to radically alter the course of the giant city-owned utility. If the full council approves the appointment next Tuesday, Nichols, 45, would become the third environmentalist on the five-member board.

Re "A cloud around the state's air chief," Opinion, Sept. 5 Richard Nemec criticizes Mary Nichols, our new California Air Resources Board chair, for holding stocks in energy companies even though she has already indicated she intends to have her investments placed in a blind trust. As chair of the same agency years ago and as a high-level federal official, Nichols led California into a new era of cleaner air.

Environmental lawyer Mary Nichols, the newly appointed head of the powerful California Air Resources Board, assured state legislators Tuesday that her mandate from the governor is to "speed up, not slow down" the state's ambitious effort to slash global-warming pollution.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought Tuesday to quiet turmoil at the state's air board and reassert his commitment to the environment by appointing an official from past Democratic administrations to the board's top position. Mary Nichols will take over the embattled Air Resources Board, which she chaired 30 years ago under Gov. Jerry Brown. She also served as secretary of resources under Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and as a high-ranking environmental official in the Clinton administration.

In a career spanning more than three decades, Mary Nichols has held nearly every major conservation post in California -- including serving as chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board and as the cabinet-level resources secretary under former Gov. Gray Davis. Now, Nichols has been chosen by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve on the board that oversees the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power -- for the second time in her career. Why does she want to do it again?

Former state Resources Secretary Mary Nichols will move into academia next year as the new head of the UCLA Institute of the Environment. Nichols said she hopes to more closely tie the research work of UCLA's faculty with the real-life problems facing state and local government. She previously headed the group Environment Now and worked as assistant administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton. More recently, she served as resources secretary under Gov.

Gov. Gray Davis on Thursday appointed California Resources Secretary Mary Nichols to the state Coastal Commission, angering another longtime Davis appointee whom he removed to make room on the powerful board that governs development along the state's 1,100-mile shoreline. Nichols cannot be sworn in as a commissioner until she officially steps down as resources secretary on Nov. 14, the Friday before Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger takes office.

Mary Nichols, senior staff attorney and director of the Los Angeles office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, has been named by the Clinton Administration to head the Air and Radiation Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley on Wednesday nominated Mary Nichols, his former campaign manager who is now an environmental lawyer, to the Department of Water and Power's board of commissioners. Nichols, who guided one of Bradley's unsuccessful gubernatorial races, would replace Carol Wheeler, a labor union executive who resigned earlier this week at Bradley's request. Bradley said he wanted to have a majority of "environmental leaders" on the board.

A top California environmental official complained Monday that the Bush administration insists on having its own way in its forest policies and ignores state input on management of the Sierra Nevada. "They have this cowboy mentality -- just leave us alone to manage the forests the way we want to," said Mary Nichols, secretary of the California Resources Agency. "And that winds up with more lawsuits and more risks.... It's a policy that is destined to fail."

He's said it until he's blue in the face, even red in the face: Nobody makes a move until he gives the OK. At one Cabinet meeting, Gov. Gray Davis actually sketched a flow chart for his agency secretaries. Trying to be both humorous and explicit, he drew a box labeled "governor" with connecting lines to 12 little boxes for the Cabinet members underneath. "I'm not appointing you to exercise your independent judgment. I'm appointing you to implement my judgment," Davis says he has told them.