Scott Pruitt. The EPA ax man.

It’s been obvious since November 9 that the Trump regime would slash the Environmental Protection Agency budget. Senate confirmation of the climate science-denying, fossil-fuel puppet and liar Scott Pruitt as the new chief of the agency he despises and has sued 16 times made it clear that budget trouble would be coming down the pike.

On Tuesday, Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis got down to specifics in reporting at The Washington Post that the regime’s 2018 blueprint for the EPA would include a 25 percent cut in the overall budget—from $8.2 billion to $6.1 billion. That would match the nominal level of the 1991 EPA budget. But figure in inflation and the spending power of that 2018 budget would be less than what the EPA was appropriated in 1971.

Chopping out such a hunk of spending would mean firing a fifth of the agency’s 15,000 employees, giant cuts in some programs and zeroing out others entirely. That latter category was said by the Post to include 38 programs.

Timothy Gardner and Valerie Volcovici at Reuters are now reporting further details: