{"id":21507,"date":"2025-02-04T09:03:25","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T10:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21507"},"modified":"2025-02-04T10:32:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T10:32:33","slug":"e-p-a-demotes-career-employees-overseeing-science-enforcement-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21507","title":{"rendered":"E.P.A. Demotes Career Employees Overseeing Science, Enforcement and More"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A spokeswoman for the agency said the change was \u201ccommon practice.\u201d Others said it injects partisanship into jobs that have always been neutral.<\/p>\n

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The Environmental Protection Agency plans to demote career employees who oversee scientific research, the enforcement of pollution laws, hazardous waste cleanup and the agency\u2019s human resources department and replace them with political appointees, according to two people familiar with the approach.<\/p>\n

The move would give Trump administration loyalists more influence over aspects of the agency that were traditionally led by nonpartisan experts who have served across Republican and Democratic administrations.<\/p>\n

It would also make it easier for the Trump administration to bypass Congress. While those formally overseeing sections of the E.P.A. must be confirmed by the Senate, the new appointees would be able to assume the role of acting department heads, circumventing the need for congressional approval.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs is common practice and has become more prevalent across administrations, E.P.A. updated its organizational structure to match other federal agencies,\u201d Molly Vaseliou, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The E.P.A. is emerging as a case study in the lessons that Mr. Trump has learned from his first term in office, when career staff members often thwarted<\/a> his administration\u2019s efforts to sideline scientists and repeal air and water protections. Mr. Trump\u2019s allies promised that in a second term they would be more prepared to swiftly<\/a> begin dismantling the E.P.A., the agency that played a central role in the Biden administration\u2019s strategy to combat climate change.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has stocked the agency with political appointees who have worked as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries<\/a>. They include David Fotouhi, the nominee for deputy administrator, a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos; Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist for both the oil and chemical industries who is expected to be the top air pollution regulator; and Nancy Beck, a longtime chemical industry lobbyist, who is serving as a senior E.P.A. adviser on chemical safety and pollution.<\/p>\n

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A spokeswoman for the agency said the change was \u201ccommon practice.\u201d Others said it injects partisanship into jobs that have always been neutral.The Environmental Protection Agency plans to demote career employees who oversee scientific research, the enforcement of pollution laws, hazardous waste cleanup and the agency\u2019s human resources department and replace them with political appointees, according to two people familiar with the approach.The move would give Trump administration loyalists more influence over aspects of the agency that were traditionally led by nonpartisan experts who have served across Republican and Democratic administrations.It would also make it easier for the Trump administration to bypass Congress. While those formally overseeing sections of the E.P.A. must be confirmed by the Senate, the new appointees would be able to assume the role of acting department heads, circumventing the need for congressional approval.\u201cAs is common practice and has become more prevalent across administrations, E.P.A. updated its organizational structure to match other federal agencies,\u201d Molly Vaseliou, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in a statement.The E.P.A. is emerging as a case study in the lessons that Mr. Trump has learned from his first term in office, when career staff members often thwarted his administration\u2019s efforts to sideline scientists and repeal air and water protections. Mr. Trump\u2019s allies promised that in a second term they would be more prepared to swiftly begin dismantling the E.P.A., the agency that played a central role in the Biden administration\u2019s strategy to combat climate change.Mr. Trump has stocked the agency with political appointees who have worked as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries. They include David Fotouhi, the nominee for deputy administrator, a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos; Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist for both the oil and chemical industries who is expected to be the top air pollution regulator; and Nancy Beck, a longtime chemical industry lobbyist, who is serving as a senior E.P.A. adviser on chemical safety and pollution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21509,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21510,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21507\/revisions\/21510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}