Open Door to Industry for Trump Environmental Agency Appointees

Political appointees at Trump administration agencies, like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, above, have deep ties to industries whose interests they oversee. Photo: Billy Hathorn via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

TipSheet: Open Door to Industry for Trump Environmental Agency Appointees

By Joseph A. Davis

By this point, most TipSheet readers have heard that many Trump cabinet picks at environmental agencies have worked for the industries they are now supposed to regulate.

But spoiler alert: It doesn’t stop there. It’s looking like “conflict of interest” all the way down.

Sure, Lee Zeldin, newly installed as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, may not be from industry. But he’s loyal.

And Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, tech billionaire and ex-governor of North Dakota (the nation’s third-biggest oil-producing state) … also loyal.

The new Energy secretary, Chris Wright, was a fracking company CEO.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be headed by the Trump 1.0 NOAA boss who scientifically proved himself unscientifically loyal in “Sharpiegate.”

And others. That’s all old news.

But there’s something more, something that environmental journalists may be missing.

 

Bureaucratic thimblerigging

As the environmental agencies fill in the political slots at lower levels of these agencies, these appointees, too, have deep ties to industries whose interests they oversee.

And like their bosses, they too are loyal.

 

Even as some environmental journalists

have barely started to cover them, a lot of

these appointees are already governing.

 

Even as some environmental journalists have barely started to cover them, a lot of these appointees are already governing.

That’s partly because Congress doesn’t get to confirm some of them. And it’s partly because, by skillful bureaucratic thimblerigging, the Trump team has learned how to bypass confirmation with acting administratorships.

As New York Times reporter Lisa Friedman recently explained it, Trumpians have already put in a new layer of the bureaucracy (may require subscription) at the EPA — replacing career executives with political appointees.

 

A few to watch

So let’s look at a few from the EPA and other agencies:

• David Fotouhi, EPA deputy administrator: A member of the Federalist Society who defended asbestos while in private practice and worked in the Trump 1.0 EPA to roll back climate and water regulations.
• Aaron Szabo, EPA assistant administrator for air: Overseeing the shutdown of the biggest U.S. climate rules, such as those on fossil fuel-fired power plants and vehicle emissions, with a long list of polluters he’s lobbied for.
• Jessica Kramer, EPA assistant administrator for water: Oversees both drinking water and sewage utilities, coming from a background where she has lobbied for both. 
• Nancy Beck and Lynn Ann Dekleva, EPA Office of Chemical Safety: While this office regulates toxic chemicals, Beck has been a director at the American Chemistry Council (may require subscription), the industry’s main lobby group. Dekleva also worked for the organization. Beck is currently a senior adviser at the EPA and could be a candidate for assistant administrator (a confirmable post), while Dekleva will be deputy assistant administrator (a nonconfirmable post).
• Steven Cook, EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management: While this office oversees Superfund hazardous waste cleanups, Cook was a lawyer for a major chemical company, and then served in this office during the first Trump administration.
• Michael Boren, Department of Agriculture undersecretary for natural resources and environment: It is easy to forget that the U.S. Forest Service is actually under the Department of Agriculture. Boren, a Trump campaign donor, will oversee the Forest Service in this post, plus some USDA land conservation programs.
• Kathleen Sgamma, Bureau of Land Management: While BLM oversees all aspects of public lands — including drilling — Sgamma has long been head of the Western Energy Alliance, which advocates for drilling on public lands.

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 8. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.