Former Republican EPA Directors Says Trump Administration Is “Undermining Science”
Here’s an interview with three Republicans who led the Environmental Protection Agency in years going back to the Reagan administration. They joined four Democrats in writing a joint letter to the EPA oversight committee, in which they express their concern that science is becoming increasingly unimportant in policy decisions, and accuse the agency’s current leadership of supporting the “undermining of science” and a potentially “catastrophic” approach to climate change.
As I have pointed out earlier, National Geographic keeps a running list of the current administration’s assaults on the agency (currently 72 pages long). Exactly how much environmental ruination we’ll be left with after this debacle is over depends on how vigorously we protest this attack on our health and safety.
Craig,
(Yawn) Whenever a bloated, over staffed and poorly supervised ideologically driven government bureaucracy is slated for reform and restructure, it will always be defended by vested interests and those who want to re-enact the “glory days’ of yesteryear with themselves in the starring roles.
These self indulgent “eco-pests” serve no useful function other than invent problems, then demand taxpayer funding to solve problems of their own making.
The EPA does indeed have a serious and essential mission. However, no government department can be independent from budgetary supervision by elected officials and appointees. A former senior member of the EPA under Clinton stated “the EPA’s primary mission is to ensure the progressive removal of American heavy industry, exploitation of natural resources, including the immediate removal of the entire fossil fuel industry in America”.
These are not the sort of policy decisions permitted to a government agency, The US constitutions restricts that power to elected representatives. Enforcement agencies should remain unbiased and non-political. There should be no place in any government agencies for ideological fanatics, crusading cranks or passionate advocates.
The EPA will, as a result of the current reforms, emerge as a better, more economical, more efficient organization able to focus on enforcing its core mission in an effective and professional manner.