THE SET-UP: Imagine if you will a Twilight Zone scenario that has President Trump pressing the Senate to confirm Bobby Kennedy as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Think of how different his confirmation hearings would’ve been … with Bobby (as Trump likes to call him) denouncing an array of toxic chemicals and pollutants the EPA struggles to contain and control because it is beholden to the industries it is tasked with regulating. His oft-used phrase for this phenomenon is “corporate capture” and he’s railed against it for years.
In fact, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works harbors a number of corporate captives. Republican Senators Cramer, Wicker, Ricketts and Sullivan have all scored big campaign bucks from Big Oil & Gas. Current Chair of the committee Shelly Moore Capito has also enjoyed lavish funding from Big Oil & Gas … and from the chemical industry that turns petroleum and petroleum by-products into a dizzying array of toxic substances. Big Oil makes big bucks from petrochemicals … and from plastic, too. And they don’t really care about the environmental impact or the human cost of doing their business. The EPA is the only thing standing between them and the increased profitability that comes with little or no regulatory oversight.
And that’s why—back here on Planet Trump—we’ve haven’t watched Bobby answer questions about a topic he’s mastered. Instead, we’ve watched him flail when asked about Medicaid, Medicare and the science of vaccines. It’s also why Trump tapped former GOP Representative Lee Zeldin to run EPA instead of Bobby.
The Sierra Club pointed out that Zeldin fed at the same trough as those oily and gassy Senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee:
According to Climate Power, Zeldin has received over $410,000 from the oil and gas industry in his election campaigns, including over $260,000 while running for Congress and more than $150,000 in his gubernatorial run. He has taken more than $60,000 from Koch Industries over the course of his political career, according to Open Secrets data.
Zeldin will not disappoint.
His EPA is already being populated with corporate captors and, at the same time, he’s signaled his intent to purge the EPA and to make sure that those who remain are absolutely committed to Trump’s oily and gassy agenda. That was made crystal clear in an email to over 1,000 “probationary/trial period” employees who were notified they could be fired at any moment. As the NY Times noted:
Many had been hired to work on programs that Congress created through two recent laws, doing things like helping communities replace lead pipes, mediating toxic sites and funding clean energy projects aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet.
EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou “declined to answer questions about the email,” but an earlier statement by Zeldin left no room for interpretation:
“I don’t believe that anyone should be here at EPA who is not committed to the agency, mission and the lawful directives coming from the duly-elected President of the United States.”
It’s a pattern being replicated throughout the Executive Branch. You are either with Trump or against him. And if you decide to remain at the EPA, you are making a tacit declaration of loyalty to him and, by extension, to the industries you were ostensibly hired to regulate. If you want to keep working for the EPA’s corporate captors … you’re probably going to need a little Stockholm Syndrome. - jp
TITLE: Michigan activists brace for a Trump EPA run by industry insiders
https://www.mlive.com/environment/2025/02/michigan-activists-brace-for-a-trump-epa-run-by-industry-insiders.html
EXCERPTS: Nancy Beck is back and that worries Sandy Wynn-Stelt.
Beck, a toxicologist best known for her efforts to weaken health standards that undergird regulations on pollution exposure, is returning to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a political appointee of the second Trump administration.
Wynn-Stelt, a Kent County clinical psychologist who lost her husband to cancer after they drank highly polluted well water for years, advocates for tighter control and cleanup of toxic ‘forever chemicals’ as co-chair of the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network.
In 2024, advocates like her notched two major victories when the EPA under Joe Biden added the chemicals to a list of hazardous substances and finalized strict national standards which only allow trace levels of PFAS in public drinking water
But that was then.
Now, “we’re very afraid that all the work we’ve done is going to get rolled back,” said Wynn-Stelt. “We’re going to have cleaner water because of those standards and I’m hopeful they will stick, but that’s going to be our fight — just keeping what we have right now.”
Wynn-Stelt and pollution cleanup and regulation advocates in Michigan and other states are girding for a systematic dismantling of EPA regulations from within under the second Trump administration, which is openly hostile to the type of government rules which are meant to reduce pollution and protect the public from toxic chemicals.
At the EPA, critics say the hiring of oil, gas and chemical industry lawyers and lobbyists such as Beck and Lynn Dekleva, both former senior staff at the American Chemistry Council, signal the resumption of Trump’s first-term efforts to weaken environmental and climate protections at the behest of industry.
The two were named to help lead EPA’s chemical regulation, according to the Washington Post.
According to the New York Times, other industry lawyers or lobbyists entering the EPA include David Fotouhi, Alex Dominguez and Aaron Szabo. Fotouhi, a lawyer who challenged a ban on asbestos, was appointed as deputy administrator. Dominguez, a former oil lobbyist, will work on automobile emissions. Szabo, an oil and chemical lobbyist is expected to be the top air pollution regulator.
Fotouhi must be confirmed by the Senate, but others, such as Beck and Dekleva, are entering the agency in advisory positions that do not require Senate approval.
During Trump’s first term, the approval process sank Beck’s nomination to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an agency meant to guard the public against toxic substances in products. While at EPA, Beck led EPA’s office of chemical safety after serving in a senior role at the American Chemistry Council, a trade group for chemical giants such as Dow, 3M and DuPont which staunchly opposed Biden’s PFAS standards.
At EPA, Beck attempted to redefine how chemical exposure risk is evaluated, putting her in conflict with agency staff scientists who took a stricter view of potential harms caused by exposure to various toxic substances.
Beck’s focus was “blocking any regulations or health standards of toxic chemicals and challenging and weakening scientific determinations that point toward the need to regulate toxic chemicals,” said Daniel Rosenberg, director of federal toxics policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
“That’s her raison d’etre, as far as I can tell.”
Under the Trump administration, Rosenberg expects the agency to begin rolling back regulations and abandoning defense of regulations such as bans on methylene chloride and trichloroethylene (TCE), two carcinogenic solvents the Biden EPA banned most uses of under a broader crackdown on chemicals known to cause serious health problems.
“I’m sure that they’re going to remove Clean Air Act protections for plastic incinerators — that’s at the top of their agenda,” he said.
Industry groups are hopeful the new administration will roll back many rules. In a 21-page December letter to Trump, a large coalition of business groups around the country, including the Michigan Manufacturers Association, asked for a reversal of the “regulatory onslaught” of the Biden administration.
Among other things, the coalition asked Trump to lift a pause on liquefied natural gas exports, relax or rollback air pollution emissions rules, accelerate and ease permitting, relax fine particulate pollution standards, repeal limits on carbon pollution at power plants and conceal certain emissions data submitted to EPA from public disclosure.
The letter also asks Trump to “reverse course” in PFAS regulations and pause chemical listings under 2016 revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act, which Republicans in Congress say is hurting American business’ ability to compete globally.
TITLE: Indiana, Kentucky utilities push Trump’s new EPA chief for weaker pollution rules
https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/indiana-kentucky-utilities-push-trumps-new-epa-chief-for-weaker-pollution-rules.php
EXCERPTS: Executives for several utility companies that provide power to Kentucky and nearby states want the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new boss to roll back regulations on coal ash generated by their operations.
Making electricity with coal leaves behind ash that can contaminate groundwater sources with dangerous substances like arsenic.
In a joint Jan. 15 letter to Lee Zeldin, whom the U.S. Senate confirmed to the post of EPA Administrator Wednesday, the power company executives say they want the agency to overhaul federal coal-ash rules that guide how companies store and manage coal ash, prevent hazardous substances from leaking into nearby water sources and remediate contamination.
The executives also want the EPA to work on repealing major restrictions Biden placed on future greenhouse gas emissions by some coal and natural gas power plants, arguing the rules are unlawful and the EPA should stop defending them in court. They warn the looming limits on emissions would force premature closures of most remaining coal-fired power plants and unnecessarily constrain natural gas plants’ operations.
In their letter to Zeldin, which was first reported this week by Canary Media, the utility executives said recent regulatory changes “resulted in significant burdens on the Nation’s power sector without tangible benefits.”
Executives from Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities, Ohio Valley Electric Corp. and Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corp., and Duke Energy signed the letter.
Lisa Evans, a senior counsel for Earthjustice and expert on coal ash policy, said the companies are effectively asking the Trump administration to “do the industry’s bidding to get rid of regulations that they think are burdensome.”
However, she said Trump’s EPA can’t easily reverse or weaken the EPA’s coal-ash rules. Proposed changes must meet certain standards, including a legal mandate to protect human health and the environment. And any change to coal ash regulations will be difficult because the damage and harm caused by the substance is well-established, she said.
“We fortunately have … a system of making regulations in this country that provides safeguards for this kind of political pressure,” she told the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. “Regulations can be changed, but they can't be changed by fiat.”
TITLE: Federal funding pause, confusion hits environmental program funding
https://www.wastedive.com/news/federal-funding-pause-confusion-hits-environmental-program-funding/738993/
EXCERPT: Non-governmental organizations and labor groups are sounding the alarm over environmental programs that are experiencing funding problems amid the transition to President Donald Trump’s administration.
The widespread confusion stems in part from a memo Trump released and rescinded last week that tried to halt programs related to environmental justice and the “green new deal.”
The Trump administration is battling with state attorneys general in court to allow its funding pause plan to continue. But despite a judge issuing a temporary restraining order on the pause, federal employees are being told not to respond to any grantee whose funding is related to the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, according to Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice for Lawyers for Good Government.
“Even though the piece of paper has been technically rescinded, the pause remains in effect,” Blanchard said on a press call Friday. “These federal employees are being scared into not providing details [to grantees].”
Dozens of U.S. EPA programs appear to be affected, according to a list published by the New York Times last week. The list includes the Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling grants program, the Recycling Education and Outreach program and the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants programs. Research programs like the Science to Achieve Results research program, which has funded landfill emissions research, were paused. So too are several Superfund programs, per the list.
The Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Grants Program, which oversees the Composting and Food Waste Reduction Cooperative Agreements funding for several projects nationwide, was also included in the list.
Several recipients of grants via those programs did not respond to Waste Dive’s requests for comment. The ultimate effect of the pause is unclear, but federal grant recipients are often obligated to follow a timeline to implement funded projects or programs. If they lack access to federal funds, they can risk falling out of compliance with that timeline, which jeopardizes the funding, according to Blanchard.
Employees at the EPA and other agencies are also urged to stop all work related to environmental justice or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Powell said that could undermine foundational programs that clean up toxic sites, like Superfund. The move could also affect recipients of Community Change grants, several of which have gone toward funding recycling and waste systems in underserved communities.
SEE ALSO:
President Trump orders threaten $100M in environmental, clean energy spending in Indiana
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2025/02/03/president-trump-executive-orders-threaten-indiana-environmental-clean-energy-ev-spending/77992855007/
Courts protect Biden’s clean energy policies and Georgia EV jobs from Trump’s ax – for now
https://georgiarecorder.com/2025/02/03/courts-protect-bidens-clean-energy-policies-and-georgia-ev-jobs-from-trumps-ax-for-now/
Trump freeze on federal aid may ensnare billions in funding to North Carolina
https://ncnewsline.com/2025/01/28/trump-freeze-on-federal-aid-billions-funding-north-carolina/
Trump’s under-the-radar Alaska order has environmentalists on edge
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/business/trump-alaska-executive-order-environment/index.html