Trump's newly minted climate-change-denier-in-chief/EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt addressed the troops yesterday, trying to give the appearance of respecting the career staff while offering some sense (but not specifics) on the direction he sees the agency moving — and demonstrating his astonishing lack of awareness about the agency and its mission.
Pruitt's remarks were delivered to a small audience in person, with other staff able to listen in or watch online. He opened with a conciliatory tone, thanking the career staff for their dedication:
Most of the people I met this morning, I think the least amount of years that I heard was 19 years. That’s quite something. That says a lot about the mission of the agency and the people that are here. And I want to commend you for your service to this country and service to this agency and thank you for that.
He used a story from Joseph Ellis’ Founding Brothers (and though he didn’t mention it, enacted in the musical Hamilton) to emphasize his belief in the importance of civility in discourse. In that spirit, he promised to be a “good listener” and noted that “you can’t lead unless you listen.” So far so good.
More revealing was his reference to a second book, Inventing Freedom by Daniel Hannan. The book’s subtitle tells you what you need to know about its author’s viewpoint: “How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World.” (It is probably required reading for team Trump.) Pruitt said he drew some lessons from the book on the importance of the American experiment that he emphasized with EPA staff:
- Process matters. Pruitt’s view of regulation is that “Regulations ought to make things regular” and “give certainty to those that they regulate.” He notably mentioned making decisions informed by “how it’s going to impact those in the marketplace” — a first hint that he is looking to make the process easier on the regulated community.
- Rule of law. Pruitt set out a fairly narrow view of the Executive branch role in developing regulations. “The only authority that any agency has, in the Executive Branch, is the authority given to it by Congress.” While he acknowledged that Congress has sometimes deferred significant authority to agencies, he emphasized that often “Congress has been very prescriptive” and that the agency should limit itself accordingly.
- Federalism. EPA delegates many pollution prevention programs to state health and environment departments, and Pruitt noted the importance of working well with the states: “[It's important that] those at the state level see us as partners in this very important mission we have as an agency and not adversaries.”
Of course, this is all highly insulting to EPA career staff since it seems to imply that they haven't been thoughtful in their process, respectful of the rule of law, and strong partners with state environmental agencies. Little wonder that it wasn’t well-received by staff. As one EPA staffer who spoke with Mother Jones said: “Talking about the rule of law as if we didn't do EVERYTHING with the realization that it WILL end up in court. It was condescending and hypocritical.”
But reading between the lines, Pruitt is signaling that he wants scaled-back regulations that give significant deference to “the marketplace”; that he plans to take a narrow view of the agency's ability to apply its own expertise in establishing regulations beyond what is defined explicitly in law (and in the case of EPA, much of the actual work of developing appropriate regulations has been delegated to the agency — so this significantly narrows the ability of staff to do their jobs); and that he plans to give deference to states that want weaker protections in their race to the bottom to attract polluting industries (perhaps he’d give the same deference to states wanting stronger protections, but I’m not holding my breath on that one).
In his close, Pruitt indicated the need to “respect economic growth” while still protecting the environment. He borrowed a quote from environmental giant John Muir: “John Muir one time said, everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to pray in and play in.” That quote would have made much more sense for an Interior Department appointee, or the Chief of the Forest Service, where their jobs include management of public lands where some areas are given more protective status to preserve our “places to pray in and play in.” EPA, though, is charged with protecting our environment writ large, ensuring that the air we breathe and the water we drink — wherever we may be — is safe and healthful. Their job isn’t just protecting the places we play in and pray in, but every place we live, work, and yes, play and pray. And so perhaps the most notable thing about Pruitt’s remarks are what he didn't say: not a single word about public health. That omission shows just how out of touch the new Administrator is with the agency mission he inherits.
Pruitt made his remarks in the Rachel Carson Green Room. Perhaps instead of quoting Muir, he might have thought about Carson’s words:
The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world — the very nature of its life.
Pruitt didn’t launch a frontal attack in his opening statement to EPA staff — but the early signs are not good. You can read the full transcript of his remarks here.