In the News

Bob Sussman was Senior Policy Counsel to the EPA Administrator during the Obama Administration and is a member of EPN. This is his article on the unprecedented threat to the EPA’s effectiveness and survival brought on by the Trump Administration and Administrator Pruitt.

EPN member Cheryl Wasserman served for 43 years in senior positions in the EPA’s policy and enforcement offices. This is her article about the threat EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt poses to environmental enforcement.

EPN member Bill Painter spent 27 years at the EPA as a scientist. In this Correspondent of the Day piece, he presents scientific facts supporting climate change in response to Tom Eaton’s claim that progressives profit from climate change.

EPN member Kathy Setian, who was a project manager at the EPA and is a delegate from IFPTE Local 20, is interviewed by WorkWeek Radio as they examine the growing crisis at the EPA and the need to have labor united to defend our air, water, and environment.

Former EPA public affairs official, Bonnie Bellow, and Carol Campbell, a former EPA regional administrator, are EPN members quoted in this article about the methods Pruitt’s EPA uses to deal with bad press: openly fighting with reporters and hiring political operatives to monitor the news.

EPN members Robert Kavlock and Lynda Deschambault are quoted in this article about the huge loss of scientists and environmental protection specialists at the EPA under Trump’s administration due to poor morale and a sense of grievance at the agency.

EPN members Rob Kavlock, Ronnie Levin and Lynda Deshaumbault are quoted in this article which examines deteriorating morale at the EPA under Pruitt.

EPN member Margo Oge served as director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality at the EPA. This is her piece on Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to roll back the regulations on glider kit trucks, despite health risks documented by his own engineers.

Lynda Deschambault, EPN member and former remediation project manager at the Leviathan Superfund site in California, is quoted in this piece on Pruitt’s move toward “lean” methods to accelerate cleanup at Superfund sites.

EPN member George Wyeth, a career EPA attorney who retired in 2017, is quoted in this article on Pruitt’s turn to “lean manufacturing” to revamp processes at the EPA and speed up regulatory approvals.

EPN member Betsy Southerland spent three decades as a career staffer in the EPA’s Office of Water before retiring under the Trump administration. She is quoted in this article about what it is like behind the scenes at the EPA during regulatory rollbacks, where the agency is now shutting out its own staff in the decision-making process.

EPN member Dan Reich retired in April 2017, after a career which included serving as a U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division Trial Attorney and an Assistant Regional Counsel at EPA Region 9 in San Francisco. This is his piece on what is really at stake for American families in the wake of the Trump administration’s budget cuts to enforcement.

EPN member Cynthia Giles, the former assistant administrator for the EPA’s enforcement office during the Obama administration, is quoted in this New York Times article about Pruitt’s lenient approach toward polluters.

EPN members Carol Campbell and David Coursen are quoted in this article about President Trump’s sweeping 2018 budget cut proposal for the EPA. The Boulder Weekly also cites EPN analysis on workforce reductions resulting from the proposed FY2018 budget.

Interviewed by KJZZ in Phoenix, Ruth Greenspan Bell is a public policy scholar, former federal employee who managed EPA lawyers, and a founding member of EPN. Here she talks about Administrator Pruitt’s shakeup of the EPA by moving away from science and many of the core EPA values.

Trish Koman, a former EPA scientist; Betsy Southerland, former director of science and technology at the Office of Water; and Mike Cox, a former EPA scientist who focused on water protection and greenhouse gas reductions, are current EPN members and are quoted in this article, which provides a behind-the-scenes perspective of the less-than-transparent Pruitt EPA.

EPN member Kathy Setian, who worked at EPA Region 9 as a Superfund project manager for more than 20 years before retiring in 2012, is quoted in this article about the closure of the Region 9 Richmond lab. Critics say this move will cripple the agency’s ability to do testing and analysis in the region.

This piece addresses EPN’s comments and grave concerns about the Trump Administration’s draft strategic plan.

EPN members Bill Pedersen, an environmental lawyer, and Steven Silverman, a lawyer who was with the EPA for almost four decades, are quoted in The Economist article on Trump’s push for deregulation. They note that while Trump has blocked new regulations with ease, repealing old ones will be much more difficult.

EPN member Robert Sussman, an EPA official in the Clinton and Obama administrations and Counsel for Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, along with other guests is interviewed by Tom Ashbrook of On Point about Pruitt’s roll back of rules pertaining to toxic chemicals and the resulting risk to health and safety.

EPN member Thomas Voltaggio, a retired EPA official who oversaw Superfund cleanups and emergency responses for more than two decades, is quoted in this piece on evidence of toxic spills during the floods after Hurricane Harvey.

EPN member Lori Stewart, former Chief of Staff of the EPA Office of Air and Radiation, responds to oil funded non-profit groups being characterized as “charities” in an earlier Washington Post story.

EPN is quoted in this article on the devastating effects the FY2018 budget proposal by the House Appropriations Committee would have on the EPA, despite being a “smaller cut” than proposed by the Trump Administration.

EPN member Pamela Hill is an environmental lawyer and former Deputy Regional Counsel at EPA’s New England Regional Office. This is her blog post on Administrator Pruitt’s attack on science.