Reuters reports that staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency were told in a Tuesday meeting to prepare for a few executive orders Friday from Pr*sident Trump, who seeks to reshape the agency. A senior EPA official who briefed employees said to expect two to five such orders. No specific topics were mentioned.
A range of possibilities exists—from modest to draconian. For instance, one is likely to forbid the EPA from overruling federal and state regulatory/permit decisions unless in clear violation of established law. At best, the orders will weaken or attempt to weaken the agency’s rule-making and enforcement powers:
Trump has promised to cut U.S. environmental rules—including those ushered in by former President Barack Obama targeting carbon dioxide emissions—as a way to bolster the drilling and coal mining industries, but has vowed to do so without compromising air and water quality.
Trump has also expressed doubts about the science behind climate change and promised during his campaign to pull the United States out of a global pact to combat it. Since his election in November, he has softened that stance, saying he would keep an "open mind" to the climate accord.
The orders are dedicated to wounding or wrecking the 47-year-old agency, but in addition to these orders, a panoply of other approaches is also underway, either to demolish or profoundly damage the EPA.
There is Rep. Matt Gaetz’s legislation—H.R. 861—to terminate the EPA as of the end of 2018. The full text is half as long the maximum tweet count, calling for a simple-minded abolition that is likely to attract a significant number of Republican congressional foes and fail to pass.
But while outright abolition may sound good to the right-wing’s nutball factions, trying to smash the EPA has that familiar Washington glitch: bad optics. Trying to kill the agency directly will arouse gigantic opposition, including more rounds of resistance protests in the streets, at town halls, and in front of congressional offices.
Keeping the EPA harnessed, defanged, and censored but alive would allow the regime to pretend publicly that the agency still protects us while every effort is being secretly made to hollow it out. Those in charge could undermine EPA’s mission with no need for enabling legislation. Lax enforcement can cover, as they say, a multitude of sins.
Scott Pruitt would be another asset for Trump. He’s the Oklahoma attorney general who is the fossil fuel industry’s good pal. He has expressed nothing but criticism for the agency that he will run if confirmed as EPA administrator by the Senate on Friday. He has called EPA’s regulations and enforcement “burdensome” and has gone to court against the agency 26 times to block environmental protections. In Oklahoma, he disbanded the state’s environmental protection unit, ending enforcement of eco-rules. He would no doubt like to pith the EPA and be done with it.
Finally there is the proposed cutting of the budget (and thus the staff). A Trump planning document that fell into the hands of Axios shows the regime likely will propose a reduction closing on a billion dollars, or about 12 percent of last year’s entire budget.
Nothing good can come of any of this.