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The Energy 202: EPA brings on two controversial regional officials
Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/fahrenthold
.@EPA brings on two controversial regional officials via @dino_grandoni
Link to tweet
The Energy 202: EPA brings on two controversial regional officials
By Dino Grandoni August 31 at 8:54 AM
THE LIGHTBULB
With health care and infrastructure legislation stalled for now, one of the few (if only) policy areas where the Trump administration is making progress is in nullifying the Obama administration’s environmental agenda. ... Yet even in announcing the rollback of rule after rule, the Environmental Protection Agency has still been stymied by the fact that few political appointees have been installed under environmental chief Scott Pruitt. ... Finally this month, those positions are beginning to be filled out. During the August recess, the Trump administration has named two people — Trey Glenn and Cathy Stepp, who each had controversial tenures running the state-level regulatory agencies in Alabama and Wisconsin, respectively — to leadership positions at two of the EPA’s 12 regional administrative offices. ... Though they receive less attention than EPA headquarters in Washington, the regional offices are essential to carrying out the agency’s agenda — which, in Pruitt’s case, is to ease the regulatory burden on businesses and work more closely with the states in which those businesses operate.
....
Both Glenn and Stepp appear to be cut from the same cloth as Pruitt. Both reduced enforcement of regulations at the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources --to the chagrin of local environmental groups who accused them of putting business interests ahead of citizens’ health. ... In making its appointments, the EPA praised the records of both officials.
Glenn will lead the Region 4 office, which covers eight states in the Southeast. Stepp will be deputy regional administrator at the Region 7 office, which oversees EPA operations in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. She will be the acting regional head until the EPA appoints a permanent one. ... Glenn’s time in Alabama is marked by an ethics investigation that began in 2007 when he ran the state's Office of Water Resources prior to leading the environmental department. ... Glenn was accused of traveling to Walt Disney World and Hilton Head. S.C., on flights paid for by a public relations firm representing an environmental engineering company that did work for the water resources office.
....
Meanwhile in Wisconsin, Stepp generated headlines last year after ordering the removal of information about manmade climate change from the website of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. ... Similarly, Pruitt, who questions the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, removed the federal agency’s climate-change website from public view in April.
....
Energy & environmental reporter for @washingtonpost and newsletter writer for @PowerPost. Follow @dino_grandoni
By Dino Grandoni August 31 at 8:54 AM
THE LIGHTBULB
With health care and infrastructure legislation stalled for now, one of the few (if only) policy areas where the Trump administration is making progress is in nullifying the Obama administration’s environmental agenda. ... Yet even in announcing the rollback of rule after rule, the Environmental Protection Agency has still been stymied by the fact that few political appointees have been installed under environmental chief Scott Pruitt. ... Finally this month, those positions are beginning to be filled out. During the August recess, the Trump administration has named two people — Trey Glenn and Cathy Stepp, who each had controversial tenures running the state-level regulatory agencies in Alabama and Wisconsin, respectively — to leadership positions at two of the EPA’s 12 regional administrative offices. ... Though they receive less attention than EPA headquarters in Washington, the regional offices are essential to carrying out the agency’s agenda — which, in Pruitt’s case, is to ease the regulatory burden on businesses and work more closely with the states in which those businesses operate.
....
Both Glenn and Stepp appear to be cut from the same cloth as Pruitt. Both reduced enforcement of regulations at the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources --to the chagrin of local environmental groups who accused them of putting business interests ahead of citizens’ health. ... In making its appointments, the EPA praised the records of both officials.
Glenn will lead the Region 4 office, which covers eight states in the Southeast. Stepp will be deputy regional administrator at the Region 7 office, which oversees EPA operations in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. She will be the acting regional head until the EPA appoints a permanent one. ... Glenn’s time in Alabama is marked by an ethics investigation that began in 2007 when he ran the state's Office of Water Resources prior to leading the environmental department. ... Glenn was accused of traveling to Walt Disney World and Hilton Head. S.C., on flights paid for by a public relations firm representing an environmental engineering company that did work for the water resources office.
....
Meanwhile in Wisconsin, Stepp generated headlines last year after ordering the removal of information about manmade climate change from the website of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. ... Similarly, Pruitt, who questions the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, removed the federal agency’s climate-change website from public view in April.
....
Energy & environmental reporter for @washingtonpost and newsletter writer for @PowerPost. Follow @dino_grandoni
Also see, from yesterday:
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources official to lead the EPA's Midwest regional office
