Ms. Penny McDaniel is an environmental scientist at the United States Environmental Protection Agency Pacific Southwest office in San Francisco. She currently serves as the EPA Region 9 Lead for the West Coast Collaborative, a public-private partnership to reduce diesel and greenhouse gas emissions in states along the west coast and the pacific island territories of the United States. Penny also co-leads EPA’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs’ (OITA) Asia Pacific Port Sustainability program. Prior to her position with the Collaborative, she worked at EPA’s Headquarters in Washington, DC on systems-based climate change analysis, renewable energy development and green remediation.
Penny created and launched EPA’s RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative, bringing together renewable energy developers, land owners, and local, state and federal government agencies to assess and implement renewable energy generation facilities on impaired land. The RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative was recognized by the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation as one of the top 25 government programs in the Innovations in American Government Awards competition. She also developed EPA’s Cleanup - Clean Air program in Region 9, which led to the establishment of green remediation policies and practices in EPA Regions throughout the nation.
She started her career at the EPA as a Superfund Project Manager, where she was responsible for environmental cleanup of National Priority List (NPL) sites in the state of California. Penny has been with the EPA for 18 years, and holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Environmental Science, and a Master’s of Science in Environmental Management from the University of San Francisco.