Rollbacks concern array of former heads of EPA

WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency heads under three previous Republican presidents joined their Democratic counterparts Tuesday in telling lawmakers they are concerned by the Trump administration’s rapid rollbacks of environmental protections.

“The EPA on the track it’s on … is endangering public health,” Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator under George W. Bush, told the House energy and commerce oversight subcommittee. Whitman said she is “deeply concerned that five decades of environmental progress are at risk because of the attitudes and approach of this administration.”

Lee Thomas and William K. Reilly, EPA chiefs under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, respectively, also spoke, as did Obama-era EPA leader Gina Mccarthy. The unusual testimony came after seven of the 10 surviving, Senate-confirmed past heads of the 49-year-old EPA signed a letter urging lawmakers to work to make the EPA focus on its mission of protecting public health and the environment.

Asked for reaction, EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said current EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler is working to engage the agency’s Science Advisory Board, or SAB.

“Administrator Wheeler will continue to work with the SAB and try to improve relations that the previous administration took for granted,” Abboud said.

Wheeler tweeted that the agency is balancing “regulations to ensure a healthy and safe environment while also saving the taxpayer $3.6 billion. And we’re just getting started.”