CLCV: About Mary Nichols

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CLCV Board Member Profile:

Mary D. Nichols

Mary Nichols is currently the chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). She has dedicated her entire life to protecting the environment, in both the private and public sectors. Immediately prior to her appointment as CARB chair, she was Director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment, where she taught seminars in air and water law at the School of Law. Before joining UCLA, she served as Secretary for California’s Resources Agency, where she set policy for 27 departments, boards, commissions and conservancies, including Forestry and Fire Protection, Water Resources, Fish & Game, and State Parks. As Resources Secretary, she also led efforts to gain voter approval for four successful bond acts that raised over $10 billion for land and water programs.

In a long career as an environmental lawyer and policymaker, Nichols has been a senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Law in the Public Interest, and headed the Environment Now Foundation as Executive Director. She also co-founded the first environmental justice working group, a multi-ethnic forum for leaders from traditional environmental and community-based organizations to address issues of environmental equity. She served as Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton administration and in a previous term as Chair of the California Air Resources Board, appointed by then-Governor Jerry Brown.

Mary served twice on CLCV’s Board, which she first joined in 1983 before resigning as CLCV’s Board President in 1988 in order to serve in the Clinton administration. After 16 years in public service she joined the Board again in 2004, resigning again in 2007 upon her appointment as CARB Chair.

“CLCV is a powerhouse in the arena of environmental politics,” states Nichols. “CLCV’s focus to elect environmental candidates into office is in my view the most effective way for politics and policy to have an immediate impact on protecting the environment. CLCV accomplishes that in a most impressive fashion.”

Read the press release upon her appointment as CARB Chair.