EPA workforce cuts mean major changes to environmental regulations

Based on the events from the first Trump administration, it didn’t necessarily come as a surprise that cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency would be one of the first decisions to be made. Just like all the other ones facing downsizing though, the one surprise may have been just how far they would go. The White House is aiming for a 65% cut to the agency’s workforce and activities. Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke to former EPA science advisor Chris Frey on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to find out what that would mean for environmental regulations overall.

Interview transcript:

Chris Frey: So we saw in the first Trump administration that the agency pivoted from fulfilling its mission to protect human health in the environment to essentially not doing that. There were a number of assessments that the agency had undergone what’s called regulatory capture where basically the policy decisions were either driven by or very much in alignment with regulated entities, which is counter to the statutory mandate for the agency. So not surprisingly, we’ve seen very early and strong hints of that with the announcement to undo something like 31 policy initiatives of the Biden administration. I think a challenge for the team 47, the second term of the Trump administration, just like it was for team 45 in the first term, is that the agency is constrained by federal statutes such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and so on.

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And it’s not an accident that EPA’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, who was appointed under Richard Nixon, set forth foundational principles that the agency needs to follow the science, follow the law and be transparent. And those things will lead to robust decision-making that will survive judicial review. What we saw in the first Trump administration is a lot of their actions did not survive judicial review because they did not follow statutory requirements for best available science and they did follow many other aspects of the statutes. And also many times they didn’t even follow proper procedure. One thing that was anticipated is that maybe lessons would have been learned from the first Trump administration to do things in a more robust way. That seems not to be the case at all. The political leadership is in their own bubble. They’re not interacting with career staff and they’re just doing their own thing. So yeah, it’s just like a reprise of what we saw in the first administration. But layered on top of that are the redoubled threats of very large budget cuts to EPA.

Eric White: Yeah, that’s the main difference this time, right, is that not just kind of freezing EPA action, but there may be actual elimination of scientists and other folks that work there. I guess my first question is what is worse from an EPA standpoint? Would you rather be held in limbo or would you rather actually just let go and be able to find something else?

Chris Frey: I don’t want to speak for any person whose livelihood depends on a job at EPA, but I know that the staff at EPA — I head at the Office of Research and Development in my time there, but I work with folks across the agency, including very closely with career leaders and career staff. And I just know agencywide that the federal employees there are there because they care about the mission of the agency. They care about the work they do, they care about public service, they care about making a difference. That’s why they want to be an EPA. Yeah, this is, I think, generally a hard time. I think there are some people within the agency who probably align with some of the policy directions of this administration, just like there are folks that align with any administration.

But by and large, the career staff, the way they operate is to support the priorities of the current administration. And that was true in the first Trump administration, it was true and the Obama administration, it was true in the George W. Bush administration. Just every administration, whatever are the priorities of that administration, the career staff will do their best to support those priorities. So there’s really no need to retaliate, to punish people. Even if people were assigned to things in the last administration that this administration does not like, those people still have skill sets and experiences and capabilities to pivot to lots of other things that this administration would like. And so it’s just completely reprehensible the way that career staff have been threatened and treated and intimidated and devalued where they really could be an ally for really any administration.

Eric White: It seems as if you all are relying on some of the judicial safeguards that we’ve already seen hamper some of the Trump administration’s other efforts. Do you think that will be strong enough to hold just being able to keep the EPA operating? I’m sure that if the administration was able to without Congress, they probably would look towards eliminating the entire agency itself. What can you say about the potential safeguards that are there, whether it is congressional oversight or judicial oversight?

Chris Frey: Well, I think a challenge for any advocates for eliminating EPA is that there’s a lot of statutory justification for EPA’s existence. EPA as an organization is written into many statutes and so I don’t think the executive branch can unilaterally do away with EPA, at least not legally. I think Congress has a big role here, and I mean, there’s some signs that at least some members of Congress are beginning to assert that these changes can’t be made without congressional approval or that these changes are unallowable because Congress has already created the organization and created the authority under which the organization operates.

And EPA works under literally dozens of federal statutes. So there’s a very close relationship between Congress and the courts in terms of the justification and reason why EPA exists and why it needs to continue to exist. As far as the role of the courts, I think if the courts follow the law as they are supposed to do, that generally the rulings would be in favor of maintaining the agency and maintaining its structures or at least going through proper process for anything that the executive might want to do to reorganize the agency. I know when I was at EPA, there were reorganizations that had to go for congressional approval. And so likewise to undo those organizations would need congressional approval. So yeah, there’s lots of things that I think the executive branch is really testing the boundaries and they’re trying to see what they can get away with and really both Congress and the courts need to call them out for it.

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Eric White: Let’s shift towards the court of public opinion. EPA, those who don’t like it, tend to really not like it and those who like it, tend to like it. That goes for a lot of political issues these days. Could this be a moment for EPA to maybe reimage itself a little bit and be able to win back some of the hearts and minds of mostly people who see it as a damper on conducting business as usual and creating unnecessary regulations and hurdles that businesses have to deal with. Just wanted to garner your thoughts on maybe this could be a time when the image of the agency could be changed.

Chris Frey: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think a challenge for the agency in its 55 years of existence is that it is so busy doing the work that it needs to do. One thing it doesn’t do as well as it could is really just educate folks on the mission and why it’s so important. When people are surveyed and asked about their opinion about EPA and EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment and to do so based on science and the law. And it affects all Americans. Every one of us has benefited from what EPA does, whether it’s the air we breathe or the water we drink or what’s in the soils or chemicals that are in the environment. And the challenges are getting more complicated and more difficult. So if anything, we need experts in the agency to help navigate these. So I think the general public, by and large, in surveys tends to have a very favorable view, but what we tend to hear about are the contrary views, particularly expressed by either industries that are polluters that are subject to EPA regulations that they don’t like or maybe on the ideological spectrum, some people who just don’t like regulation.

But the reality is that while I think America is based on capitalism, capitalism doesn’t solve all problems and there are market failures in the free economy. The free economy does not put a price on a pound of air pollution because no one buys or sells air pollution. So it’s what’s called an externality. So if I emit air pollution from my car and you breathe it and then you suffer an adverse health effect, there’s no transaction where I compensate you for that and I don’t have to pay you for damage. And that’s why we need regulation is really to correct these market failures. And so there’s a very, I think, fundamental and sound economic argument for why we need an EPA. Also, the costs of regulation are far less than the health benefits of avoiding illnesses and avoiding premature death, avoiding the loss of ecosystem services like fisheries and swimming and so on. One study of the Clean Air Act found that the act as a whole is produced for every one dollar of control cost, it produces $30 of economic benefit. And that’s just one of the statutes under which EPA operates. So yeah, I think there’s a lot more that can be done also to personalize what EPA does because this affects individual people in individual communities. And that’s where people can best appreciate if you live in Ohio and the river’s not catching fire anymore or you’re able to play outdoors if your child is asthmatic, but able to play outdoors because of improved air quality. These are things that come from EPA.

Eric White: It’s not the only federal agency that is science-based that is dealing with that issue, right?

Chris Frey: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which produces weather forecasts and oceanographic data that supports navigation and so on. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the list goes on and on. There are so many science-based agencies and I think people just don’t really recognize how much these agencies affect their day-to-day life, but they will recognize it when it’s gone.

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