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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established over a half-century ago by President Richard M. Nixon, who stated in 1970: “It …has become increasingly clear that only by reorganizing our Federal efforts can we … effectively ensure the protection, development and enhancement of the total environment itself ... In organizational terms, this requires pulling together into one agency a variety of research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities now scattered through several departments and agencies. It also requires that the new agency include sufficient support elements--in research and in aids to State and local anti-pollution programs, for example--to give it the needed strength and potential for carrying out its mission.” (full document available upon request). William D. Ruckelshaus, the first Administrator of EPA, confirmed that the Agency has "the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment" and set its course to focus on research, standards, and enforcement of this goal. Congressional enactments of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the Toxics Substances Control Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, and subsequent amendments to those laws provide specific authorization to the EPA to carry out its mission. With the increased impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss in the 21st Century, these objectives could not be more compelling.
Over the past several weeks, the Donald Trump Administration has made every attempt to reset the course of EPA. The new Administrator of the Agency, Lee Zeldin, has redefined the purpose from enhancing the total environment and public health to "lower(ing) the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business." In order to succeed in this reversal of the role of the EPA, the administration will likely attempt to repeal or significantly weaken dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on air and water pollution, restrictions on greenhouse gases, safeguards of wetlands, identification and protection of threatened and endangered species, regulation of pesticides and other toxics in the environment and in consumer products, assessment of the environmental impacts of major federal actions, and oversight of hazardous waste disposal and cleanup. One of their primary targets is to revise the 2009 EPA "endangerment finding," which established that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. If this action succeeds, it will stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases and ensure the catastrophic consequences of climate change now well-established by science.
The Administration is also attempting to freeze funds for Congressionally approved climate programs, which have supported the transition away from fossil fuels, and has begun the process of firing a large portion of EPA staff, which would decimate the Officeof Research and Development, the primary scientific arm of the Agency. All these actions are threatened, but many have not been finalized. Significant legal hurdles remain in order to repeal or revise these regulations. Lawsuits have been brought on efforts to reduce agency staff and more are likely. Yet even if a temporary restraining order stops these firings, damage will be done and some expertise will be permanently lost. We cannot wait to act.
More information on recent attacks on the EPA is available here:
What You Can Do:
Now is the time for all of us to express our concern about the dismantling of the EPA and the suppression of sound science regarding the environment, pollution, climate change, and public health.
We urge our classmates and colleagues to write to their members of Congress to express opposition to all attacks on the environment and especially the unauthorized effort to critically weaken the EPA and to illegally rewrite its mission. Numerous threats have been launched by Trump and Zeldin, but there is still time to prevent the worst from happening. Many environmental organizations are leading efforts to defend the EPA in Congress, in the courts, and in public discourse.
Without specifically endorsing all the work of any one organization we urge everyone to support these NGOs. Several leading advocates for the EPA are the:
The ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change Working Group plans to release announcements about critical issues and opportunities for anyone concerned to support scientific integrity and environmental protection. We hope to organize an open meeting soon to discuss our role in addressing the environment, biodiversity loss, and climate change. If you are a member of HR73 and want to join our efforts, please email John Kress at KRESSJ@si.edu.
