Can the EPA Survive Trump & Congress?
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- Category: Environment
The post Can the EPA Survive Trump & Congress? appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.
In the first few days of the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) already has felt shockwaves.
Trump issued an Executive Order imposing an immediate hiring freeze on federal agencies for 90 days, giving the Office of Personnel Management time to come up with a plan to shrink the federal government through attrition. At a time when the federal workforce includes many workers about to retire, the impact could be substantial.
The new administration has informed the EPA and other science agencies that its scientists may no longer publish or speak publicly about their research without a review by the White House. Agency staff also may not post blogs or comments on social media.
The nominee to head the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is an avowed enemy of the agency and has sued it 14 times to block enforcement of its rules. Questioned about human-caused climate change, Pruitt grudgingly conceded its existence. But he said that the extent of its harmful effects had not been adequately assessed and is “subject to continuing debate.”
No wonder that David Doniger, director and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate and clean air program, predicts, “[The environmental community is] in for a rough ride.”
Doniger joined NRDC in 1978, and in 1993 took a position in the Clinton administration. He spent most of his time there as counsel to the head of the EPA’s clean air program and director of climate change policy for the agency’s air program. He also represented the US during climate negotiations in Kyoto. He returned to NRDC in 2001. He sat down for an interview with WhoWhatWhy on January 24.
Doniger knows what it’s like to face political opposition to environmental policies from Republican and Democratic members of Congress looking to protect fossil fuel industries. He’s seen Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush try to dismantle the EPA.
“This is different,” he says.
The tactics may not have changed, but the intensity is far greater.
He worries that the Trump administration’s goal is not simply to reverse specific Obama Administration policies, but to destroy the agency and the laws it implements more fundamentally — through draconian budget cuts, the departures of committed staff, and the passage of laws that would make it impossible for the agency to do its work under any administration.
At stake, he says, is the agency’s long-term future.
Photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from NRDC and USEPA / Flickr
Tall and lean, Doniger is bald and bearded, with a sardonic wit. His work space is small, part of a suite of offices occupying the entire floor of a modern skyscraper in Washington a few blocks from the Washington Monument. The building’s mix of tenants is diverse. Coal industry lobbyists used to rent offices upstairs, Doniger says. The building continues to house The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol’s conservative publication.
NRDC reports that it has 2.4 million members and activists. Its annual budget tops $130 million. It isn’t that NRDC and its environmental allies lack a game plan. They know that “you don’t get anywhere just with information anymore,” Doniger says.
NRDC bases its work on facts, science, and “true stuff,” but what makes that information effective is conveying a message to either “embolden” friendly members of Congress, or “scare” the unfriendly ones, into doing the right thing, he says. Pressure on Congress and the new administration requires mobilizing large numbers of citizens, he says, an effort that began in earnest with the Women’s March on Washington on January 21. NRDC was one of the co-sponsors of the event.
Doniger believes in the rule of law and the rule of the marketplace. He has predicted that the courts will continue to uphold the EPA’s authority and obligation to protect public health from the harmful effects of climate change. That means the agency will be able to continue to regulate carbon pollution from power plants, cars and trucks and other polluting industries.
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