{"id":113998,"date":"2026-01-27T16:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T16:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/113998\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T16:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T16:57:08","slug":"mamdani-to-name-former-biden-official-as-environmental-protection-commissioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/113998\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani to Name Former Biden Official as Environmental Protection Commissioner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday will announce Lisa Garcia as the new commissioner of the city Department of Environmental Protection, according to multiple people with knowledge of the appointment.<\/p>\n

Garcia previously served as the Region 2 administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden. In that role, she oversaw matters involving New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight Tribal Nations.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Garcia has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration\u2019s gutting of the EPA. She has marched to protest<\/a> the cuts to staffing and funding.<\/p>\n

A lawyer by training, Garcia has worked in environmental and climate advocacy positions throughout her career, including at the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice.<\/p>\n

Garcia will succeed current DEP Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala, who announced on Wednesday he\u2019d be departing from the agency<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DEP delivers clean drinking water to New Yorkers through its vast network of upstate reservoirs and massive pipelines. The agency manages the sewer system, works to mitigate flooding and monitors air quality and noise.<\/p>\n

Neither Garcia nor a City Hall spokesperson returned calls or texts requesting comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSamantha is a senior reporter for THE CITY, where she covers climate, resiliency, housing and development.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Samantha Maldonado\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday will announce Lisa Garcia as the new commissioner of the city Department of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[50676,9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-113998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-mamdani-appointments","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-staten-island","13":"tag-staten-island-headlines","14":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}