EPA Leaders From Both Parties Blast Trump's Environmental 'Evisceration'
Source: Newsweek
Published Mar 14, 2025 at 5:29 PM EDT | Updated Mar 14, 2025 at 10:40 PM EDT
Former leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents spoke Friday against the Trump administration's announcement this week that it will roll back dozens of major environmental rules. "What this administration is doing is endangering all of our lives," Christine Todd Whitman said during a call with reporters.
Whitman, who was also elected New Jersey governor as a Republican, was EPA administrator during President George W. Bush's first term in office. William Reilly, who led the EPA under President George H.W. Bush and served in the administration of President Richard Nixon, called the current EPA's actions "a catastrophe" that threatened to undo more than 50 years of environmental progress.
Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator during President Barack Obama's second term, said the announcements that the EPA made Wednesday marked "the most disastrous day in EPA history," and accused the agency's current leadership of siding with polluters. "This EPA administration is doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry more than it is complying with the mission of the EPA," McCarthy said.
The three veteran government officials came together from across party lines after current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unleashed a blitz of announcements Wednesday to reconsider 31 regulations dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, toxic air pollution, clean water protections and waste from fossil fuel extraction. Zeldin called it the biggest deregulation action in U.S. history and said he was driving a "dagger through the heart" of climate regulations.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/epa-environmental-protection-agency-former-leaders-comment-trump-administration-policies-2045208