For nearly the past four years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been led by former oil and gas industry lobbyists who have prioritized rolling back environmental regulations instead of enforcing them. With the presidential election looming, six former heads of the EPA are leading a call to reset the agency and return it to its original mission instead of, you know, serving the interests of major polluters.
William Reilly, Lee Thomas, Carol Browner, Christine Todd Whitman, Lisa Jackson, and Gina McCarthy, all former Administrators of the EPA, joined more than 500 former EPA senior managers and employees as part of the Environmental Protection Network to make recommendations on how the agency can get back on track. The collection of agency veterans is bipartisan and includes administrators and employees who served under both Democratic and Republican leadership, suggesting that there is something significantly different in how the agency has operated under Trump.
The Environmental Protection Network put forth hundreds of pages of documentation that seek to establish “specific and actionable steps that EPA can take to reset the course of the agency to address the most significant and pervasive threats to public health and our environment.” The plans range from better incorporating environmental justice into the EPA’s daily work to reducing emissions from vehicles. They even get into the nitty-gritty, suggesting changes to how the EPA performs economic analyses and reevaluating the agency’s relationships with states, cities, and tribal lands. Some of the plans appear to be in direct response to Trump-era policies. A plan to restore science as the backbone of decision making at the agency, for instance, would directly address the Trump administration’s attempt to limit the use of scientific research when making decisions about public health. Continue reading.