A dagger into the heart of climate change

When the Trump administration announced it was moving to eliminate dozens of U.S. climate policies, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said he was sending "a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion."

- BARBARA KATES-GARNICK

That drive—to both repeal environmental regulations and cast doubt on science—reflects the Trump administration's approach to environmental policy.

Deregulation has long been a key theme in Republican environmental policy. The conflict between the obligation to protect public health and the desire to boost markets traces back to Ronald Reagan's presidential administration. Reagan's perspective that government is not a solution to problems, but is the problem instead, set the stage for Republican administrations that followed.

Reagan argued that the growth of government spending and business regulation had stymied economic prosperity. Environmental regulations were a prime target.

Forty years later, America is seeing many of the same concepts in the Trump administration. However, its strategy could have a greater effect than Reagan ever envisioned. There are many ways to kneecap government agencies: Instituting massive budget cuts, cutting staff with critical functions, and appointing leadership whose goal is limiting the reach and effectiveness of the very agencies they direct are just a few. In these efforts, Reagan and Trump had similar approaches to the EPA, although with different levels of intensity.

Trump's EPA budget plan for 2026 includes a draconian 50 percent cut from the previous year and the lowest budget proposal, when adjusted for inflation, since Reagan. Staff cuts in just the first six months of the second Trump administration put the agency's total employment at 12,448, down from 16,155 in January.

Reagan dissolved the EPA Office of Enforcement to limit "unnecessary regulation," which resulted in an 80 percent decline in actions to enforce environmental regulations. Trump is also stopping enforcement actions, dismantling the EPA's Science and Research Office and politicizing the agency's science by putting political appointees in charge, moves that undermine EPA's independence and expertise.