Gutting the Environmental Protection Agency
In response to my post yesterday on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s purge of scientists who refuse to toe the line of the fossil fuel industry, frequent commenter MarcoPolo writes: (EPA Administrator) Scott Pruitt, like everyone else in the U.S. Federal Public Service is being required to downsize and streamline those agencies which have grown excessively bloated, or bureaucratic. (His) policy is very clear. The EPA will no longer provide sinecures for politically activist employees or advisory panels.
You are correct that the “drain the swamp” mantra is the guise under which this is happening. And remarkably, even after Trump packed his cabinet with Goldman Sachs execs and other wealthy donors to his campaign, there are a few people who still believe in the basic integrity of the “swamp draining” metaphor. But most people see what’s happening in the EPA for what it is: an aggressive purging of the administration’s climate scientists in an attempt to remove the regulations that currently limit the fossil fuel industry’s ability to profit at the expense of the environment.
To say you’re “protecting the environment” while you’re gutting the EPA of its capacity to mitigate climate change is like saying you’re using flamethrowers to extinguish fires. It’s nonsense, and, fortunately, most people see that.
Scott Pruitt has spent his entire career using litigation to block the EPA from doing its job on behalf of all Americans and the other 7.1 billion people on the planet; as I’m sure you’re aware, he’s sued the EPA no fewer than 14 times before he was appointed to “lead” the agency. Here’s a 1432-page summary of these lawsuits.
I note that you echo the fossil fuels boys’ fallacy equating climate change mitigation with political activism. But who’s gullible enough to believe that? Believing in science doesn’t mean a person is a radical, it means he’s rational, and that he has the personal strength to reject obvious lies.
If you’re sincerely interested in getting at the truth here, I urge you to check out the video below, in which an EPA scientist discusses why he was fired. And here’s another article on the subject. If you Google “EPA scientist demoted” (like I just did), you’ll find a ton of other information on the subject.
Craig,
Thank you for your response.
You are quite correct, there are a number of ways the administration’s policies can be interpreted, and probably somewhere in the middle is accurate.
But, if I may make a couple of observations.
Robert Richardson doesn’t help his case when as a scientist he employs inaccurate and sensationalized terminology (it makes you wonder about his scientific impartiality).
Richardson claims he was fired ! (a claim you repeat) Later when challenged, he equivocates, admitting he wasn’t fired, his term expired and although he was offered to reapply, decided not to work for the new administration.
But what work did Robert Richardson do at the EPA ?
Robert Richardson is an ecological economist and associate professor in the MSU Department of Community Sustainability, in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
By his own admission, Richardson was employed to “develop and deliver workshops or “bootcamps” on the integration of behavioral and social sciences in environmental policy and management at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development”.
This involved conducting webinars, conferences, seminars and other methods to encourage scientists and academics to employ “tools from the behavioral and social sciences to enhancing the value of their own research, in order to maximize and disseminate a more positive reinforcement of the effects of Climate Change.
Now I accept Robert Richardson is an honest and dedicated academic, who means well.
Consider the inference that could be drawn from his own description of his role at the EPA.
It could be construed Richardson schooled other academics, officials etc psycho-propaganda techniques to enhance with a particular agenda. He encouraged “modifying” research to concur with prevailing EPA doctrine, especially when the EPA funded the research.
I’m sure that isn’t the case, and Dr Richardson’s activities are completely ethical, but with the Agency now operating on a more stringent budget, is such expenditure really the best and most effective use of scarce resources ?
My second observation is astonishment at your claim Climate Change mitigation doesn’t contain an element of political activism !
Good grief, claiming political activism among the green lobby is a fiction perpetrated by the fossil fuel lobby, is pretty far fetched !
Yuo may believe the EPA is a Holy Cow and President Obama’s use of Executive Orders to by pass Congress was morally justified.
You might even be right, but that’s not how the US Constitution works ! Scott Pruitt is quite entitled (indeed it’s his constitutional duty) to contest in the US Supreme Court the limits of Presidential power.
You may also be right in believing the Obama administration’s policies were correct, and the current administration is wrong. You have a Constitutional right to express those views.
By it’s nature, such a conflict is political, but for now, the elected administration doesn’t agree with the policies of it’s predecessor. You must accept there will be changes.
A new administration will make those changes it sees fit. If you want the EPA to follow certain policies, it’s simple, all you have to do is persuade the US Congress to pass legislation.
That’s how representative democratic government works ! 🙂
Anyone possessed of even a passing familiarity with the worsening plutocratic nature of US governance would not describe it with the phrase “representative democratic government.”