Carter Strickland, Commissioner
Carter Strickland was appointed to be the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on August 17, 2011. Previously, he served as Deputy Commissioner for Sustainability at DEP. In that role, Commissioner Strickland oversaw DEP’s environmental planning, analysis, permitting, policy, and enforcement programs, and was charged with importing sustainability principles to build on PlaNYC, Mayor Bloomberg's sustainability blueprint for New York City. He was the principal leader of DEP’s plans to shift combined sewer overflow controls to green infrastructure in its consent orders and long term control plans, to structure a program to address stormwater in its separated sewer system, and to adopt heating oil regulations that will remove more pollutants than are emitted by all of the trucks and cars in the city and save hundreds of lives each year. As part of DEP’s executive leadership team, Commissioner Strickland was instrumental in the development and implementation of Strategy 2011-2014, DEP’s plan to become the safest, most efficient, cost-effective, and transparent water utility in the nation, and lead DEP’s efforts for national regulatory reforms that would prioritize water and wastewater investments according to a rational cost-benefit approach that maximizes public health benefits.
Before joining DEP, Commissioner Strickland was the Senior Policy Advisor for Air and Water with the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, where he was responsible for the implementation of PlaNYC across all agencies and departments, with a focus on water, air, and natural resource issues. The foundation for Commissioner Strickland’s work on sustainability initiatives was developed through his extensive regulatory and litigation practice at the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, where he taught environmental law and policy and directed the clinic’s litigation of numerous ground-breaking natural resource and pollution control cases on behalf of local and national environmental groups.
Commissioner Strickland is a graduate of Dartmouth College (A.B. 1990) and Columbia University School of Law (J.D. 1995), where he was Executive Editor of the Columbia Environmental Law Journal and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Following law school he clerked for the Honorable Joseph H. Young, U.S. District Judge, in Baltimore, Maryland.
