There’s been a “full-throated attack” on science at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump Administration, according to former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.
McCarthy, who led the EPA from 2013-17 under President Barack Obama, is now professor of the practice of public health and director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She offered her assessment of the current EPA, now under the leadership of agency head Scott Pruitt, during a wide-ranging interview for the Michigan news website MLive.
As evidence of the Trump Administration’s attack on science at the EPA, McCarthy pointed to “everything from reducing its budget to taking science off of its webpage to taking the word ‘science’ out of offices’ names. It’s getting pretty extreme, including an administrator [Pruitt] who’s building a cone of silence in his own office.”
In the interview, McCarthy also discussed vehicle emissions standards, drinking water contamination, lessons learned from the Flint, Michigan water crisis, and changes to environmental protections for air and water under the Trump Administration.
Read the MLive interview with Gina McCarthy: ‘Full-throated attack’ on science under Trump, says ex-EPA chief
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