NC Senate confirms Cooper’s second choice to lead Department of Environmental Quality
For the first time in more than six months, North Carolina has an environmental agency leader without “acting” in front of her title.
The N.C. Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to confirm Gov. Roy Cooper’s appointment of Elizabeth Biser to lead the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.
Biser is the first woman to serve as DEQ’s secretary in a full capacity. She and Dionne Delli-Gatti, whose confirmation the Senate denied earlier this year, had served as acting secretaries of the department.
In a statement released Tuesday, Biser said, “I am ready to get to work on the issues that matter to the people of North Carolina. I thank Governor Cooper for the opportunity to return to this department as Secretary and I look forward to working with the General Assembly and all of our stakeholders to protect our environment and our economy.”
After Tuesday’s vote, the Senate recognized Biser and her family, who were present in the chamber.
Sen. Brent Jackson, an Autryville Republican who introduced the resolution to confirm Biser, said, “She was able to answer some extremely tough questions in the nomination process, and she did it with such grace and tact that you could tell she knew what she was talking about.”
Jackson said Biser has a history of building consensus and expressed a willingness to meet with legislators to work through challenging issues.
During a committee meeting last week, Biser said her priorities as secretary would be to protect the state’s natural resources, to increase the state’s resilience against severe weather and to update DEQ’s permitting process to make applications easier to track and cut down on delays.
In a release following Tuesday’s vote, Cynthia Satterfield, the state director of the N.C. Sierra Club, said, “Given the recently released IPCC research on climate change, it’s critical for our state to have environmental leaders whose work will be guided by sound science and environmental justice. Elizabeth Biser is just such a leader.”
Cooper appointed Biser in June, shortly after the Senate’s vote on Delli-Gatti. That vote marked the first time that the Senate had refused confirmation to a gubernatorial appointment since the process was set up in the days following Cooper’s 2016 election victory.
Delli-Gatti is now serving as DEQ’s North Carolina clean energy director, a position where Cooper’s office said she is expected to advance renewable energy efforts in the state by working with legislators and crafting regulations.
Michael Regan, who served as DEQ secretary during Cooper’s first term, is now administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In Biser, Cooper appointed someone who is very familiar with North Carolina politics and with DEQ. Biser grew up in Columbus and Johnston counties before attending the University of North Carolina.
From 2006 to 2010, Biser served as a lobbyist for the state’s environmental agency, which was then known as the N.C. Department of the Environment and Natural Resources. Biser left the department to move to a law firm, where she lobbied primarily for environmental and media organizations. In 2019, Biser went to work for The Recycling Partnership, a non-profit that works with the public and private sectors to fund recycling efforts.
During last week’s committee meeting, Biser said, “My entire career, I’ve worked to bring people together, to find innovative ways to solve problems and to prove that a good environment and a good economy go hand-in-hand.”
This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 5:51 PM with the headline "NC Senate confirms Cooper’s second choice to lead Department of Environmental Quality."