Trump Administration Poses Threats to Environmental Protection Agency

The nomination of climate change denialist Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has raised red flags among environmental advocates. Many voiced concern over fellow climate change denialist Myron Ebell’s leadership of the EPA transition team, yet Pruitt’s selection represents an even greater danger to the EPA and public health.

With different leadership, among the most vulnerable of the EPA’s efforts are rules that industry has already attacked through the legal system and are now wending their way through the courts. In any of these suits, the EPA could simply stop defending their rules. Or, worse still, they could reissue them so that they are friendlier to industry and less protective of people and the environment. Threatened issues include mercury and air toxics standards, waterways protection, and tightening the regulation of oil refineries. The Trump administration and Republican-dominated Congress could simply cut entire budgets of programs that are not aligned with Republican strategy, including The Integrated Risk Information System, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and Safer Choice, all of which deal directly with the human and environmental health risk of toxic chemicals.

Long term research efforts by the EPA, some of which have been going on for over a decade, could also be tabled just as they near completion. These include efforts to measure the presence of perfluorinated chemicals in groundwater, soil, and sludge; protect the public from lead exposure; and evaluate and essentially ban the use of organophosphate pesticides that are known neurotoxins.

Public pressure and action in response to attempts to dismantle environmental protections is essential. Thankfully federal statutes such as the Clean Water Act, the recently reformed Toxic Substances Control Act, and emergency responses to environmental disasters are less likely to be touched.

[Sources: The Intercept, The New York Times, Inverse]