EPA Bracing For All-Out Assult On Staffing, Funding And On Legal Authority To Protect People From Pollution

[hatrack]

After several years of recovery after the tumult of Donald Trump’s last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now bracing itself for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to the White House. When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a “little bit of the EPA” left “because you can’t destroy business”, prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency’s 50-year history.

“People are anxious and apprehensive, [and] we are preparing for the worst,” said Nicole Cantello, an EPA water specialist and president of AFGE Local 704, representing agency staff in the midwest. “We’ve had a taste of what will happen and how we were targeted last time,” she said. “By the emails and texts I’m getting, a lot of people will leave. So many things could be thrown at us that it could destroy the EPA as we know it.”

Cantello said the union is already seeking to shield itself by departing its office at the agency’s Washington headquarters, ditching the use of EPA computers and divorcing union dues from the federal payroll system. “We have to try to protect our people by being independent of the agency,” she said. “But folks will have to take stock over whether they can endure the attacks that are going to come their way.” Such anxiety stems from the experiences of the last Trump administration, which removed a broad sweep of environmental regulations and attempted to cut the agency’s budget by a third.

EDIT

Trump’s allies have promised an assault on those who stay. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,” Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a recent speech. “We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/11/environmental-protection-agency-staff-react-trump-second-term

[Ndp5]

1. How to counter this?

Is there a way for the EPA people to use their expertise to fight back? What about a nonprofit Climate Corps, funded by Gates or Buffett or Bloomberg?

Granted, it wouldn’t have the vital regulatory powers of the EPA, but it could raise awareness about the effects of climate change, lobby the private sector and help out on the ground in the wake of natural disasters — stuff like that. Plus, it would get young people involved in solutions and networking with each other rather than sitting angrily on the couch.

I just think there has to be an answer to this assault on our planet. I understand why people are leaving EPA, but then use your skills to shine a light on what’s happening and gather popular support — don’t just duck and cover.

[hatrack]

2. Without regulatory authority, I'm trying to see what the point would be.

Sure, money from Gates or Bloomberg could be used to fund science gutted by Shitstain, but there's already overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, air pollution, toxins, negative health impacts.

Nobody working for President Asshole is paying attention to what's already out there in the scientific literature, so what possible difference would more science make?

[Ndp5]

3. Not what I said

I’m not saying it should be used to fund science. I’m saying it should be used to fund climate activism — pressuring the private sector, since lobbying the government will be pointless — and grassroots responses to extreme weather events. Building goodwill by helping out in the aftermath of flooding or hurricanes, for example, coupled with a public information campaign, could help build support for climate solutions among populations that are currently mired in climate denialism.

I don’t think fatalism is the answer to this. That’s what Trump and his cronies want.

[hatrack]

4. Well, if you count 1988 as the starting gun for climate activism, we're now in year 36 . . . .

And we can see how things are going, a full generation and a bit on from when Hansen went to Capitol Hill to say, in essence, "We have a problem".

1988 - 351.69 ppm CO2
2023 - 421.08 ppm CO2

At 2.13 billion tons per ppm, that's a net gain of 147.8 billion tons over 36 years. After 36 years of conferences and studies and "bold declarations" and consensus and innovation and politicl action and political inaction - and yes, climate activism - this is where we are. After 36 years, we've managed to add 42% of the total mass of atmospheric CO2 that was in the air ]in the year that I started counting for this example.

I very much like your idea of strengthening communities to prepare for climate-related disasters - in fact, we will have no choice but to do precisely that, saddled as we will be with a federal government that doesn't work/doesn't care and despises reality.

And maybe outreach/activism will work under such conditions, but with the degree of disinformation, misinformation and flat-out lies that currently permeates this country, it would probably be best undertaken simply as the right thing to do and if it actually changes minds (and I don't even know what "changes minds" means anymore here in the Kingdom Of Ignorance And Bullshit), it's gravy.