Three former EPA leaders from Republican and Democratic administrations reprimanded the Trump administration’s plans to rewrite dozens of landmark air and water regulations.
“EPA’s announcement marked the most disastrous day in EPA history,” said Gina McCarthy, who led the agency during the Obama administration, calling it a “not so subtle way of ushering in a global age of pollution” that “marked a change” away from the agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday announced plans to reconsider at least 22 rules, including the 2009 “endangerment finding” heralded as foundational to the agency’s actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The trio — McCarthy; William Reilly, who led under former President George H.W. Bush; and Christine Todd Whitman, who led under former President George W. Bush — has been particularly outspoken against Trump’s deregulatory approach since his first term, which Whitman then called “a war against the environment.”
