Zeeshan Aleem: How Donald Trump jeopardized Biden's climate agenda.
, more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts left the EPA during the Trump administration as Trump undercut the EPA’ regulatory mechanisms, shunned the work of its scientists and shrank the EPA’s budget. Staff were demoralized and overworked, and it’s taking a while to recover. The Times reports that over the last two years, Biden’s hiring has brought EPA staff numbers back up to … “slightly more than when Ronald Reagan was president.
What this means is that the agency’s staff are being worked to the bone to deliver Biden’s ambitious plans. But without enough personnel, they're at risk of missing deadlines for the complex regulatory regimes meant to restrict emissions of pollutants and chemicals. Regulations take a long time to craft, and EPA officials are saying they’re behind where they should be.
The fact that understaffing could potentially fuel the Biden administration not fulfilling its climate goals is a depressing thing to contemplate. This isn’t a matter of congressional gridlock getting in the way of badly needed policy; miraculously, Congress actually managed to pass alast year. And now the EPA has more money than it’s had in a long time.
Imagine if Biden’s predecessor had instead been a politician who valued the EPA’s mission, and sought to fund it properly and champion its cause. It’s possible the agency might still be scrambling as they take on new challenges, but it would have the wind at its back, and it would be better positioned to help protect the world against its greatest threats.
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