EPA’s former enforcement chief on Thursday decried the current administration’s destruction of federal efforts to keep polluters in check — even at the expense of priorities Trump officials prized during the president’s first stint in the White House.
David Uhlmann, who led EPA enforcement during the Biden administration, bemoaned the mass departures of career staff at his former agency and at the Justice Department’s environment division.
“Both of those agencies are lesser today than they were 13 months ago, and the country is worse off as a result,” he said to an audience of attorneys at an environmental law conference in Washington. “Tragic is not too strong a word to describe what has happened.”
Uhlmann noted that the evisceration of the federal government’s enforcement power comes as Trump EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has touted increased energy production and a bolstered U.S. auto industry as two pillars of his agency’s work. It also comes as the president has leaned on DOJ to serve as his personal law firm.
