Stan Meiburg, “Restoring the EPA: Lessons from the Past"

In this article, Meiburg begins by reviewing the Trump administration’s unprecedented commitment to undermine the EPA. Not only did senior Trump officials, consumed by climate denial, use their understanding of the EPA’s regulatory structure to enact far-reaching changes to the agency, the challenges of climate change, environmental injustice, and chemical harm to the environment create a bureaucratic and environmental challenge for President Biden. Likewise, the Trump EPA worked to curtail state’s powers to legislate and enforce environmental policies through cutting operating grants, limiting the Clean Water Act, and opposing state climate initiatives. Rebuilding the EPA will require forward-looking businesses who recognize the threats of climate change, market systems that generate efficient environmental protection, and that the EPA re-embrace Ruckelshaus’s core values of science, law, and transparency to regenerate confidence in the agency both inside and out.