Here’s a quick hypothetical for you. You’ve been tasked with appointing the new leader of the National Fire Prevention Association (this is not real, so just go with it). Your options range from veteran firefighters to expert industrial engineers to dedicated safety officials and everyone in between. With all of these choices in mind, would you pick an arsonist?
This seems a bit farfetched and foolish, but this is, in effect, what President Donald Trump is doing to our Environmental Protection Agency, bit by bit. Back in May, news broke that the Trump administration had appointed Nancy B. Beck, a high-level official and representative of the American Chemistry Council, to an administrator position within the EPA unit in charge of overseeing toxic chemicals.
Yes, you read that right. The Trump administration picked a person representing the chemical industry to help supervise a toxic chemicals unit. If you’re like me and missed this terribly ironic appointment in the flurry of news this summer, you can now fully digest what this means for pollution, public safety and environmental health. Let’s take a look.
This past Saturday, The New York Times published an in-depth story on Beck. Soon after being appointed, Beck “insisted upon the rewriting of a rule to make it harder to track the health consequences of (perfluorooctanoic acid), and therefore regulate it,” reporter Eric Lipton writes.
According to the EPA, these types of chemicals pose dangerous health hazards to humans and wildlife, lingering in the environment long after exposure and capable of causing reproductive and developmental problems. The Times got ahold of an internal memo from the Office of Water, a division within the EPA, that “ensures drinking water is safe,” according to its own website. Yet the memo states Beck’s changes could make it more difficult to fully understand the risks to humans and wildlife posed by these chemicals. This quite clearly and directly conflicts with at least one aspect of the office’s stated mission.
Can we really pretend to be surprised at this point? Just look at who Trump has running the entire EPA. The agency’s current administrator, Scott Pruitt, has repeatedly worked toward rolling back regulations put in place to ensure a safe and healthy environment for humans and wildlife alike.
The Huffington Post analyzed Pruitt’s official calendars using a Freedom of Information Act request in June. During his first months as administrator, Pruitt “spent more time meeting with fossil fuel executives than environmental and public health advocates ... Since then, he’s spent less than 1 percent of his time with environmentalists,” Alexander C. Kaufman writes. It’s only natural the EPA administrator would have matters to discuss with folks in the fossil fuel industry, but should those matters really be the focal point of his entire leadership?
We must stay vigilant as the Trump administration and company name unqualified and biased nominees for positions in highly important national agencies. The EPA serves to do just that: to protect us and our natural resources. Yet what we have is the equivalent of pyromaniacs leading a council on fire prevention. Is this really what we want for our country?
As we contemplate and reflect on this, we must channel our disgust and anger into productive outlets, whether that’s through our own environmental initiatives and programs or by reaching out to our representatives in Congress. We must sign and share petitions. We must vote, vote, vote. And above all, we must pay attention.
Mia Gettenberg is a UF criminology and philosophy senior. Her column appears on Mondays.
