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EPA Official Was Romney’s ‘Green Quarterback’ ………………That puts Romney in an awkward position when it comes to his own moderate record on energy, the environment, and his common link with Obama’s EPA: Gina McCarthy, EPA’s top air pollution official.

It also highlights the stark changes between the GOP of today and that of seven years ago, when Romney was governor, the science of climate change wasn’t such an inflammatory political issue, and Republicans and Democrats even worked together on global warming issues.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has taken most of the fire from Republicans as her agency rolls out a slew of controversial new climate and clean air rules. But McCarthy, the EPA assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation, has taken on much of the heavy lifting of writing, structuring, and implementing the rules.

“Lisa’s the coach and Gina’s the quarterback” in the work of rolling out new clean air regulations, said Daniel Weiss, an energy and climate policy expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. “She’s running the plays, improvising on the line.”

McCarthy is meeting behind the scenes with coal CEOs, lawmakers, and state and federal officials to lay the groundwork for the new rules and make sure they’re put in place. She’s making sure the clean air legal language is written in a way that’s robust and airtight, in order to have the biggest impact on cutting pollution, with no loopholes. She’s testifying to Congress, making the case as to why the rules should be implemented, despite a fusillade of political attacks.

Environmentalists, who applauded Obama’s appointment of McCarthy in 2009, have generally given her rave reviews on the job. Republicans, especially those like Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who tried to block her Senate confirmation, have been less enthusiastic.

Environmentalists also applauded in 2003 when then-Gov. Romney appointed a team of officials with strong environmental records to oversee a muscular environmental regulatory agenda, and to come up with a plan to tackle climate change. Among them was McCarthy, who had worked as an environmental regulator for the four previous Massachusetts governors—two Democrats and two Republicans.

Romney named McCarthy to a similar “green quarterback” role in his administration: undersecretary for policy at the Executive Office for Environmental Affairs, in charge of preserving the state’s open spaces, farmlands, and forests. He also tasked her with developing Massachusetts’s first climate protection action plan.”…………..