Senior White House Climate Official Resigns

Cecilia Martinez, a member of the White House Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ), announced that she would resign Friday, nearly one year after accepting the role.

Martinez explained that she needed rest and wanted to spend more time with her family in an interview with the Associated Press. She was in charge of crafting the White House’s aggressive environmental justice policy which had been lauded by climate activists but criticized by Republicans and the fossil fuel industry.

“It was a hard decision,” Martinez told the AP.

Martinez previously served as the executive director of the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy, and she was a professor at the University of Delaware. President Joe Biden selected her for the White House position shortly before taking office last year, The Washington Post reported at the time.

“From the campaign and the Presidential Transition to this critically-important first year of the Administration, Cecilia has been the heart, soul, and mind of the most ambitious environmental justice agenda ever adopted by a President,” CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory said in a statement, CNN reported…. (Excerpts from the Virginia Star)