Sen. Jeff Merkley is scrutinizing conflicts of interest in EPA’s chemicals office and questioning how recent decisions align with the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
In a letter sent to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Thursday, the Oregon Democrat targets Trump administration decisions “to undermine pesticide and chemical decisions at the agency that will negatively impact public health” and the “chemical industry insiders” appointed to lead the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
Merkley said he was “cautiously optimistic” when the White House’s interagency MAHA Commission released its first report last May, which named corporate influence as one of the potential factors driving childhood chronic disease in the U.S. — despite top EPA leaders joining the agency from industry gigs.
“Unfortunately, the past year of this administration’s decisions within [OCSPP] have revealed a great hypocrisy between what this administration claims to care about in the MAHA report and what is happening in practice under your leadership and behind closed doors,” Merkley wrote in the letter.
