Despite promises by Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz to reverse key environmental regulations leveled by the Obama administration, those rules are set in law and would require years of court fights to change, according to the EPA boss.
Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said Tuesday that any new president simply couldn’t come in, “express an opinion and have those decisions go away.”
To do so, she added, would require fighting through several layers of “scrutiny” and proof changes are needed and would work — or years of legal litigation.
At a media breakfast roundtable hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, McCarthy did not mention names, but was asked about candidates who are promising to do everything from upending coal and energy production regulations to eliminating the EPA.
“A lot of the work that we’re doing is frankly, all of the work that we are doing, is bound by the law that Congress gave us. As you know, when you work with laws like the Clean Air Act, there are record based decisions. They’re not decisions that a president can come in and express an opinion and have those decisions go away,” said McCarthy.
“So we feel like what we have accomplished is grounded in the law, it’s true to the science. We have clear records, the one thing I know more than any other agency is EPA’s rules get scrutinized like no other. They would have to go to that same level of scrutiny by any president should there be a reverse in direction. You would need a clear record to establish that or you will be working through the court system for a very long time,” she added.
What’s more, McCarthy said, “We’ve done a good job.”
Most Republicans believe that the EPA has gone too far in targeting the coal industry, spent too much to subsidize alternative energy, and is not listening to all scientists in pursuing a worldwide climate change agenda.
Both Trump and Cruz have promised massive elimination of EPA regulations. On the Democratic side, both candidates have supported the EPA and would go further than President Obama has.
No matter who wins, McCarthy had a list of broad suggestions of action.
We need to continue to have investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency in the energy world. There needs to be continued investment in things like carbon capture and sequestration, or carbon capture use and sequestration,” she said.
She said continued investments in pollution solutions are also necessary. “We need to get highly efficient vehicles, zero emitting vehicles on the ground, we have to move forward with our heavy duty vehicles, we have to shift away from hydrofluorocarbons, we have to look at how we continue to grow manufacturing in a way that is efficient,” she told the reporters.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
