Former Environmental Chiefs Unite to Blast Trump Record
Trump’s EPA Chief Boasts About Progress as Predecessors Scoff
(Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. environmental chiefs endorsed Joe Biden on Monday, saying the Democratic nominee would aggressively counter the existential threat of climate change while bolstering the federal agency tasked with safeguarding America’s air and water.
“This is an enthusiastic support for a new era in the environment we so desperately need. Vice President Biden will bring us that,” said William Reilly, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency under former President George H.W. Bush. Under Biden, Reilly said, “I have full confidence that we will see the kind of turnaround we have to see.”
Reilly’s comments came in a call with reporters organized by the Biden campaign as both President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger seek to woo voters concerned about the environment. Earlier Monday, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler extolled U.S. greenhouse gas reductions and progress cleaning up toxic Superfund sites, as he boasted the Trump administration has done more to “improve the environment than probably any administration except perhaps during the very first years of EPA.”
Wheeler’s claim was rebutted by former EPA chiefs who joined Reilly on the call Monday, including Gina McCarthy and Carol Browner, who headed the agency under Democratic presidents, as well as Christine Todd Whitman, who served under former President George W. Bush.
Whitman called the EPA’s approach under Trump “mind boggling,” arguing it has taken actions that make the world more dangerous and “our lives more tenuous.”
“I’ve never seen an administration that actually seems to me to have a war against the environment and a war on science,” Whitman said. “The Environmental Protection Agency has a very simple mission: to protect human health and the environment. This administration seems determined not only to do away with it but to turn its back aggressively on that mandate.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to slash EPA’s budget while relaxing rules governing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, automobiles and oil wells.
Agency staff are being robbed of the tools, resources and support they need to safeguard the environment, Browner said. “What we need to do is put that agency back together, and we need to overcome what we’ve lost in these four years.”
Biden has advanced a $2 trillion blueprint for creating a clean energy economy with a goal of achieving carbon dioxide-free electric power generation by 2035.
By contrast, McCarthy said, the Trump administration has sought out “to destroy everything that EPA has built up.”
“They have spent all of their time denying science and ignoring the law -- and instead of advancing new policies, they’re simply dismantling hundreds of rules at a frantic pace,” McCarthy said.
The U.S. has made strides in paring some pollution. For instance, Wheeler highlighted a 15% decline in U.S. energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide since 2005, saying the foregone greenhouse gas emissions out pace those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada combined -- and come even as China’s emissions have surged 50%.
But environmental experts and market analysts say U.S. has pared greenhouse gas emissions from electricity largely because power companies have shed coal in favor of cleaner-burning natural gas and low cost renewables. State renewable power targets also have propelled reductions.
Wheeler defended the EPA’s track record on Monday, saying the agency has made strides cleaning up toxic Superfund sites and clearing a backlog of unapproved state plans for combating air pollution while investing in U.S. drinking water infrastructure.
“It is incontrovertible that today the environment is in better shape under President Trump than we found it,” he said in a speech before the American Enterprise Institute. “The Trump administration has epitomized and carried out, more than any other administration, the core mission of the EPA, which is to protect human health and the environment.”
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