Despite an unprecedented revolt by the agency’s employees, Scott Pruitt was confirmed Friday to head the Environmental Protection Agency. But that’ll hardly be the end of the rebellion.
As The New York Times reported, EPA staffers actively lobbied senators to oppose Pruitt — the kind of political activity normally off-limits for career civil servants.
Their motive: Like Trump, Pruitt is highly skeptical of the “end all fossil-fuel use” prescription for combatting climate change, and a big doubter that renewable-energy sources can meet the nation’s needs. More, he’s a fierce opponent of over-regulation.
Like Trump’s other nominees, in other words, he understands the real-world consequences of EPA action, preferring a more balanced approach.
But the EPA is an aggressively activist agency. So its “civil servants” have no qualms about getting overtly political, and longstanding tradition be damned.
Then, too, Trump has vowed to reduce the EPA’s size — which puts comfy EPA jobs at risk. As one union leader said of the agency protests he helped lead: “It’s in our interests to do this.”
Obviously — but it’s not necessarily in America’s best interests.
Civil servants are supposed to be nonpolitical, disinterested experts who can professionally execute the orders of their political overseers. Sadly, that’s increasingly not the case — witness the scandalous Obama-era IRS war on Tea Party nonprofits.
Myron Ebell of Trump’s transition team told the Times that the EPA staffers’ campaign to stop Pruitt suggests it’s “probably time to look at reforming the civil service laws.”
It certainly is. And that could mean an even bigger earthquake in Washington than a shift in environmental policies — one the folks at the EPA would regret even more.
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