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hatrack

(59,446 posts)
Tue May 23, 2017, 07:41 AM May 2017

EPA Transition Head: Trump Heading For EPA Disaster Because Not Destroying Agency Quickly Enough

“This is an impending disaster for the Trump administration.” That’s how Myron Ebell, the climate science denier who oversaw the transition team for President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, described the state of the agency to a conservative conference, according to tapes obtained by Reuters.

Ebell’s concern is not the dramatic, unpopular cuts Trump will reportedly serve the EPA in his forthcoming budget, or how those cuts will be received by the American people and Congress. He thinks they don’t go far enough.

The actions taken thus far by the Trump administration to gut the EPA budget, to prevent EPA from relying on science in its decision-making, and to undo regulations aimed at protecting public health and a livable climate have already led to the agency’s own staff “openly mocking” Trump’s “callous” policies, as as one retiree explained. But for conservatives like Ebell, the disaster is that the administration, and particularly EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, are doing far too little.

EDIT

But many conservatives believe that if EPA doesn’t formally undo the agency’s 2009 endangerment finding, then its efforts to kill Obama’s CO2 regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan, will be ultimately overturned in the courts. The reality, however, is that what Trump and Pruitt are doing is not likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court, especially with Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch to break any tie votes.

Nonetheless, conservative media continues to publish articles like this Breitbart piece from April, “Environmental Groups Ask EPA to Rescind Obama’s ‘Endangerment Finding’.” Under the term “environmental groups,” however, Breitbart includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which is where Ebell serves as director of the Center for Energy and Environment.

EDIT

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-epa-budget-disaster-ab3da236ce3d

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EPA Transition Head: Trump Heading For EPA Disaster Because Not Destroying Agency Quickly Enough (Original Post) hatrack May 2017 OP
Thanks for the context. I was wondering about those "impending disaster" headlines. Eugene May 2017 #1
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