Senator Whitehouse has questioned Scott Pruitt, the EPA’s potential new boss, about his ties to the oil and gas industry Stephen J. Boitano/LightRocket via Getty

On 3 February, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz introduced to the US House of Representatives a bill to terminate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which standardises and enforces limits on air, land and water pollution.

It comes as hundreds of former and some current employees of the agency have urged Congress to reject President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the agency, Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, who has in the past backed industry interests over that of the regulator, and led many lawsuits against the EPA.

Pruitt could be confirmed by the Senate this week, and is expected by some to move forward on Trump’s campaign promise to “get rid of” the agency, though critics expect him to do so in a piecemeal manner by making cuts and weakening the agency’s powers.


A major overhaul of the EPA’s website since Trump took over has already seen the removal of federal climate plans created under former president Barack Obama and a mention of carbon pollution as a cause of climate change.

The bill to get rid of the agency altogether sounds drastic, but it may be more of an anti-regulation rallying cry than a real harbinger of what’s to come for federal environmental protection under Trump.

Public support

“Given the overwhelming public support for clean air and water, it seems unlikely members of Congress would do away with the agency,” says Michael Tubman, director of outreach for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “If they did, they’d have to find or create an agency to implement all of the environmental protections Congress has approved over the past 50 years.”

Steven Cohen, executive director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, agrees. “People like to breathe. That’s one of the things we’ve gotten used to in America.”

Cohen has served as a policy analyst and consultant to the EPA at various points over the past four decades and says this bill, if approved, would create unnecessary inefficiency as states would have to work out on their own how to deal with water and air pollution that crosses state lines.

It’s not as if eliminating the EPA would stop the work it does from happening, either. Environmental disasters on federal land or in waters that affect many states, like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, could be handled by other agencies like the Department of the Interior or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Cohen says.

“This is a symbolic gesture,” he says. “There’s really deep and general support over protecting the environment. Disagreements are over the means rather than the ends.”

Ill-advised move

Moves to eliminate the agency may be politically ill-advised, Cohen says, given that Republicans control the White House and Congress so they can set the agencies’ agendas.

“It doesn’t make sense to give your opponents such a visible symbol,” he says. Those that support the EPA’s environmental protection can use this to rally their own base, Cohen says, while abolishing the agency won’t immediately have the desired effect of reducing regulations that Gaetz has said are burdensome.

“I sympathise. I think the EPA has overreached in some areas,” says Jeff Holmstead, former assistant administrator of the EPA for Air and Radiation. “But I think the answer is to fix those problems rather than eliminate the agency.”

Holmstead says some states have the capability to handle most environmental regulation on their own, but when it comes to multi-state environmental disasters, federal oversight is appropriate.

“It would be very inefficient to try to have all the individual states doing things differently and potentially at cross purposes, so it makes sense to have the EPA step in,” he says. He also thinks the passage of the bill is unlikely, mostly due to widespread public support for the EPA’s mission. It is likely to be more about making a statement than enacting a law, he says.

New Scientist did not receive a response to a request for comment from Gaetz’s office. There is no information on how a termination of the EPA would be enacted.

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