McCarthy will be a vital player in the effort to protect our families and environment.  (EPA)

This week a Senate committee will hold a nomination hearing for Gina McCarthy to replace Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson.

Gina McCarthy, the EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, is a sound choice for the job. Given her background and experience, the Senate should move expeditiously to confirm her.

For more than 25 years Gina McCarthy worked with politicians from both parties, including a stint as Gov. Romney’s energy and climate advisor in Massachusetts. In 2009 Republican and Democratic senators easily confirmed McCarthy by a voice vote to head the clean air division of EPA.

Gina McCarthy is a dedicated environmental professional with a history of working on difficult issues including climate change. We share her vision of an energy-efficient economy which creates sustainable jobs.

68% of African Americans live within 30 miles of coal fired power plants, our nation's worst toxic polluters.

Even in today’s divided political climate, taking a stance against mercury and arsenic in our air does not seem like it should be controversial. The gasses, along with other known toxics like chromium, cadmium and selenium are among 84 known air pollutants emitted every year by coal and oil fired power plants.

They have cost us dearly, resulting in as many as 11,000 premature deaths, 5,000 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks annually. If we talk about the economy, these pollutants are responsible for 540,000 missed days of work. All this in addition to the terrible havoc these pollutants wreak on ecosystems.

It isn’t like this is a new problem, either. When the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990 it called for new Mercury Air Toxic Standards. A decade overdue, these standards have finally arrived to help us prevent such unnecessary suffering and pain. This is hardly an unprecedented step; the changes were based on protections many power plants had already enacted. All of this makes the barrage of lawsuits industry is filing to delay or dismantle these new standards more perplexing.

Against these legal assaults we are proud to stand alongside the NAACP and 16 other national and state medical, civil rights, environmental, public health and clean air groups.

Water that has come into contact with coal ash has been found to contain poisonous levels of arsenic, lead and other pollutants at more than 200 sites across the nation.

In Missouri, rape apparently does not cause pregnancy, and it’s OK for children to eat coal ash.

When Missouri Republican Todd Akin said last August that “legitimate rape” rarely results in conception, the congressman caused quite a stir—and this offensive nonsense, broadcast coast to coast, likely cost him a Senate seat.

More provocative baloney was recently heard in Missouri—this time from toxicologist Lisa Bradley about the safety of children eating coal ash—the waste produced by burning coal.  Never mind that coal ash contains an alphabet soup of toxic trash, such as arsenic, hexavalent chromium, lead, mercury and a dozen other hazardous metals, Dr. Bradley testified at a public hearing in Union, MO that “a child could consume coal ash every day and have no increased exposure to arsenic.”

Dr. Bradley is a vice president and senior toxicologist at AECOM, a prominent international consulting firm that has received numerous contracts to investigate coal ash sites, including controversial investigations of the Kingston TVA disaster and the Town of Pines Superfund Site.

Lisa P. Jackson has announced that she will be stepping down from her position in January 2013.

Earthjustice is saddened by today's announcement that Lisa Jackson is stepping down as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

America owes Lisa Jackson a debt of gratitude for her work to protect the public's health from polluters and their allies in Congress. For her efforts to clean up pollution and better protect the environment and public health, she faced a steady barrage from members of Congress and the industrial polluters who back them. Her detractors are the same people who told us taking lead out of gasoline in the 1970's would break the economy and that taking acid out of acid rain in the 1990's would ruin the country. In both cases, the environment and economy were strengthened and this is the approach Lisa Jackson took. There is a lot of unfinished business started by Jackson that the next EPA director will need to attend to. Whoever it is, they'll need the support of the President and they'll need to be ready for a non-stop barrage of attacks from the chemical, industrial and fossil fuel industries and their allies in Congress.