The Environmental Protection Agency was in panic-mode the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Memos from administration officials had poured into the office, ordering information about climate change to be taken off the agency’s website. Employees were reportedly clocking in to their shifts overcome with anxiety; some workers were in tears, wondering if they’d have a job at the end of the year. Less than a month later, their fears have become a reality – on Thursday, Donald Trump submitted a proposal to hose the EPA’s budget.
If Congress approves Trump’s plan, the EPA’s budget would be cut by nearly a quarter. One out of every five Environmental Protection Agency could see their jobs disappear. Devin Henry of The Hill says the cut would bring the agency’s current $8.1 billion budget down to where it was when George H.W. Bush was president.
The move shouldn’t come as a surprise. If Donald Trump has done one thing well, it’s carry out the promises he made as a candidate in 2016. He has long been critical of the EPA, decrying its rules and regulations as bad for American businesses.
Scott Pruitt, the newly-appointed Director of the EPA, is a long-time climate change denier who didn’t accept the reality of global warming until his Congressional appointment hearing. Pruitt, who is the former Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, has a history of fighting against the environment. He joined in on litigation to stop a clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, which is among the most polluted bodies of water in the United States. As Attorney General, he also routinely took the side of big industry in legal disputes. In fact, before assuming the role of Director, Pruitt had filed over a dozen lawsuits against the EPA throughout Barack Obama’s tenure as commander-in-chief.
Before announcing the proposed budget cut, Trump signed an executive order which fulfilled one of Pruitt’s dreams: the rewriting of the Waters of the United States Act. WOTUS gives the EPA the power to protect bodies of water deemed as “vulnerable” to pollution or litter.
Senator Brian Schatz (D) of Hawaii isn’t surprised.
“I always took him very seriously when it came to his desire to dismantle the Clean Air and Clean Water Act, and he’s going to try go through with it,” the senator said. He called Thursday’s proposal “radical.”
“It’s extreme, and we will fight it. And of course a budget is a declaration of political objectives and not a binding document, so the committee will have their way with it, and I know we’ll have a fight.”
Republicans in Congress reacted with a mix of approval and skepticism. Conservatives in the past have rejected amendments to cut the EPA’s budget by about a seventh.
“If this budget is enacted the way he wants it, he’s effectively dealt a very significant death blow to the EPA,” said Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona.
For the Environmental Protection Agency, the future hangs in the balance. With punishing executive orders raining down and a massive budget cut looming, the only hope the agency has for the future is a legislative rebellion against President Trump.
Sources
Scott Pruitt, Trump’s E.P.A. Pick, Backed Industry Donors Over Regulators
Join the conversation!