Jared BlumenfeldJared Blumenfeld was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as EPA Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest in November 2009.  EPA Region 9 is home to more than 48 million people in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, the Pacific Islands, and 148 tribal nations.

Mr. Blumenfeld has spent two decades on the front lines of protecting the environment both at home and internationally. His priorities at EPA include strong enforcement, environmental justice, protecting and restoring our air, land and waters, building strong federal, state, local and tribal partnerships, and taking action on climate change.

Clean Water: designating the Los Angeles River Exit as a protected waterway under the Clean Water Act; reaching a landmark $3.7 billion settlement with Honolulu Exit to improve wastewater treatment and reduce 34 million pounds of pollution in coastal waters; and approving the nation’s largest “No Discharge Zone” Exit to eliminate 22 million gallons of raw sewage discharged in California waters by oceangoing vessels each year.

Enforcement and Cleanup: taking enforcement actions at more than 70 facilities along the I-710 freeway corridor in California as part of a targeted environmental justice initiative; finalizing more than a dozen Superfund site settlements that collected nearly $200 million for past and future cleanup work; and leading a $100 million federal effort to clean-up the toxic legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation.

Air Quality: signing more than 100 air quality plans that reduced harmful ozone and diesel fumes affecting millions of Pacific Southwest residents; providing $1.5 million in funding for the largest deployment of all-electric delivery trucks in the world; saved $7.8 million and eliminated the equivalent of more than 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide through the Federal Green Challenge partnership; and issuing a rule to reduce 40,000 tons of emissions a year from the Four Corners Power Plant, which will improve visibility at 16 national parks and wilderness areas in the Southwest.

Smart Growth: directing President Obama’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) initiative in Fresno, which garnered more than $7 million in new grants for sustainable economic development.

Mr. Blumenfeld has made hearing directly from elected tribal leaders a priority and has personally visited more than 80 reservations to understand their on-the-ground challenges.

Before becoming Regional Administrator, Mr. Blumenfeld was the Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment where he spent eight years as the primary environmental decision-maker for the city. Jared helped to initiate many landmark environmental laws that became part of the municipal Environment Code. These included San Francisco’s ban of plastic bags, a 2020 zero waste goal, LEED Gold building standards, and an overarching precautionary principle framework.

Mr. Blumenfeld’s environmental leadership includes chairing the first United Nations World Environment Day hosted by the United States - Green Cities: Where the Future Lives (2005), overseeing the Treasure Island Redevelopment Authority, and directing international initiatives to protect eight million acres of wildlife habitat. He is a founder of the Business Council on Climate Change, an organization that unites businesses around the challenge of climate change. Mr. Blumenfeld has worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Mr. Blumenfeld received his law degrees at the University of London and the University of California, Berkeley.

The EPA Region 9 offices include a talented and diverse team of more than 800 scientists, engineers, inspectors, environmental specialists, analysts, lawyers and administrative staff working to protect human health and the environment across eight time zones.