Tag
The Environmental Protection Agency — the federal agency responsible for enforcing environmental laws. Incidents involve EPA budget cuts, rollback of environmental regulations, and elimination of enforcement actions protecting public health.
3 incidents
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
The EPA repealed most federal limits on carbon pollution from coal and gas power plants -- about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions -- and proposed eliminating the rest, asserting that the sector's emissions have no material climate impact.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
An unprecedented withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, UNFCCC, and IPCC, combined with the rescission of the endangerment finding and rollback of 31+ environmental rules, constitutes the most comprehensive destruction of environmental protections in US history. The actions remove the world's largest historical emitter from the international climate framework while eliminating domestic regulation of greenhouse gases.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Pruitt's tenure combined serious corruption with aggressive deregulation — two goals that reinforced each other. His round-the-clock security detail cost more than $4.6 million by June 2018; an internal EPA intelligence assessment found no specific credible threats justifying its expansion. He flew first class, citing security, over the reluctance of the lead agent of his own detail. He rented a condo from a lobbyist couple at $50/night while their firm had clients regulated by the EPA. He raised the salaries of two aides by about $56,765 and $28,130 using a Safe Drinking Water Act hiring provision after the White House had rejected the increases. He was ultimately undone by the accumulation of scandal but had already implemented dozens of deregulatory actions.