‘China Is the Engine’ Driving Nations Away From Fossil Fuels, Report Says

Its vast investment in solar, wind and batteries is on track to end an era of global growth in the use of coal, oil and gas, the researchers said.

By Max Bearak, The New York Times, Sept. 8, 2025

Since the beginning of the industrial age, the global economy has required more and more fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — to power growth.

It is increasingly clear, however, that China’s aggressive efforts to sell batteries, solar panels and wind turbines to the world is on course to bring that era to an end, a new report says. The Chinese dominance of clean-energy industries is “creating the conditions for a decline in fossil fuel use,” according to a report by Ember, a research group focused on the prospects for clean-energy technologies.

The report includes a sprawling set of data to support its claim.

The scale of Chinese production since 2010 has driven the price of these technologies down by 60 to 90 percent, the researchers found. And last year, more than 90 percent of wind and solar projects commissioned worldwide produced power more cheaply than the cheapest available fossil-fuel alternative, they said. That cost advantage might have seemed laughable before China began pumping billions of dollars of subsidies into the sector.

“China is the engine,” said Richard Black, the report’s editor. “And it is changing the energy landscape not just domestically but in countries across the world.”

If Beijing is trying to wrest the future of energy from anyone, it would be the United States, the world’s biggest oil and gas producer and exporter. The Trump administration has eliminated almost all federal support for renewable energies and has pressured countries to purchase American fossil fuels as part of trade deals.

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The falling cost of renewable energy, though, means that many countries, particularly poorer ones, have a strong incentive to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

According to Ember’s report, the falling costs of energy produced by Chinese-made wind and solar installations have allowed countries like Mexico, Bangladesh and Malaysia to race past the United States in recent years in terms of using renewably produced electricity (rather than fossil fuels) in everyday activities like heating and cooling buildings or powering vehicles.

Across Africa, solar panel imports from China rose 60 percent in the last 12 months, and 20 African countries imported a record amount over that period, Ember said in a separate study recently.

American companies, who do not make solar panels or wind turbines at anywhere near the scale of Chinese ones, are at a major disadvantage. Chinese companies now supply 80 percent of solar panels and 60 percent of wind turbines worldwide, Ember said.

China has pushed for dominance in renewable energy partly for economic reasons and also to protect its national security by limiting its reliance on oil imports. But the implications for the planet’s health could scarcely be greater. Scientific consensus has long been that a sharp decline in fossil fuel use is the surest way to lessen the pace of climate change.

“For too long, emerging economies have faced what seemed like a stark trade-off between growth and sustainability,” said Suwit Khunkitti, Thailand’s former deputy prime minister. The Ember report “challenges that assumption,” he said.

To be sure, some countries would not be keen to rely so heavily on Chinese technology for geopolitical reasons. And few developing countries have the spending capacity to install the kinds of energy transmission and storage capacity that has allowed China to transform its own domestic energy grid so quickly.

When the world’s fossil fuel use will peak also comes down to the pace of that change in China itself.

China still burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and emits more climate pollution than the United States and Europe together. The country has not yet seen a decline in coal usage overall, though its total greenhouse gas emissions have reached what looks like a plateau.

But last year, China met 84 percent of its electricity demand growth with solar and wind power, according to the report. That meant it was able to cut fossil fuel use by 2 percent, despite a growing demand for power.

Mr. Black said that decline in fossil fuel use was largely due to burning less coal to produce electricity. He pointed to a number of recent policy directives that have reallocated subsidies and production incentives away from coal and toward solar and wind.

China is still building dozens of new coal-burning power plants, he said, but instead of running constantly like many existing ones, they might be at full capacity only during peaks in energy demand. Meanwhile, the contribution of wind and solar to the grid was quickly growing, he said.

“Coal is increasingly acting like training wheels,” said Yuan Jiahai, a professor at North China Electric Power University. “It provides balance and backup while the clean electricity system gains strength and confidence.”

China’s economy as a whole is increasingly reliant on the clean energy sector.

Investment and production in clean energy last year contributed nearly $2 trillion to China’s economy, a figure which the report said was around one-tenth of the country’s economy as a whole, or comparable to Australia’s entire economy. The clean energy sector grew at a rate three times that of China’s economy overall, according to the report.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/climate/china-clean-energy-fossil-fuel-research.html?searchResultPosition=1

Trump, With Tariffs and Threats, Tries to Strong-Arm Nations to Retreat on Climate Goals

The president has made no secret of his distaste for wind and solar in America. Now he’s taking his fossil fuel agenda overseas.

By Lisa Friedman, The New York Times, Aug. 27, 2025

President Trump is not only working to stop a transition away from fossil fuels in the United States, he is pressuring other countries to relax their pledges to fight climate change and instead burn more oil, gas and coal.

Mr. Trump, who has joined with Republicans in Congress to shred federal support for electric vehicles and for solar and wind energy, is applying tariffs, levies and other mechanisms of the world’s biggest economy to induce other countries to burn more fossil fuels. His animus is particularly focused on the wind industry, which is a well-established and growing source of electricity in several European countries as well as in China and Brazil.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he was trying to educate other nations. “I’m trying to have people learn about wind real fast, and I think I’ve done a good job, but not good enough because some countries are still trying,” Mr. Trump said. He said countries were “destroying themselves” with wind energy and said, “I hope they get back to fossil fuels.”

Two weeks ago, the administration promised to punish countries — by applying tariffs, visa restrictions and port fees — that vote for a global agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions from the shipping sector.

Days later in Geneva, the Trump administration joined Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries to oppose limits on the production of petroleum-based plastics, which have exploded in use in recent years and are polluting waterways, harming wildlife and have even been detected in the human brain.

Last month, the Trump administration struck a trade deal with the European Union in which it agreed to reduce some tariffs if the bloc purchased $750 billion in American oil and gas over three years. That deal has raised concerns in some European countries because it would conflict with plans to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the burning of which is the main driver of climate change.

“They are clearly using various tools in an attempt to increase the use of fossil fuels around the world instead of decrease,” Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s former special envoy for climate action, said.

Also last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned that the United States could pull out of the International Energy Agency after the organization predicted that global oil demand would peak this decade instead of continue to climb.

Mr. Wright told Europeans in April that they faced a choice between the “freedom and sovereignty” of abundant fossil fuels and the policies of “climate alarmism” that would make them less prosperous.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Trump’s goal was “restoring America’s energy dominance, ensuring energy independence to protect our national security and driving down costs for American families and businesses,” and added, “The Trump Administration will not jeopardize our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals.”

Energy experts and European officials called the level of pressure Mr. Trump is exerting on other countries worrisome. Last year, the hottest on record, was the first calendar year in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels. Along with that came deadly heat, severe drought and devastating wildfires. This year is on track to be the second- or third-hottest on record, according to data from several agencies.

Scientists widely agree that to avoid worsening consequences of climate change, countries need to rapidly transition away from oil, gas and coal to clean energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal power and hydropower.

“At this moment in time it is absolutely imperative that countries double down, triple down, on their collaboration in the face of the climate crisis to not allow the active efforts for a fossil fuel world by the Trump administration succeed,” Ms. Morgan said.

Mr. Trump routinely mocks the established science of climate change and his administration has issued a report, written by five researchers who reject the scientific consensus on climate change, arguing that hundreds of the world’s leading experts have overstated the risks of a warming planet. The president also has made no secret of his disgust for wind turbines and solar panels.

Those disparagements don’t end at the water’s edge.

In July, Mr. Trump visited his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, where 14 years ago he tried unsuccessfully to stop construction of an offshore wind farm that could be seen from another Trump golf resort in Aberdeen.

During that visit, Mr. Trump met with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, to discuss trade. He denounced wind power as a “con job.” Ms. von der Leyen sat expressionless next to Mr. Trump during a news conference after their meeting as the president falsely claimed wind turbines drive birds “loco.”

In a separate meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain that week, Mr. Trump called wind energy “a disaster.”

Wind accounts for about 20 percent of the electricity mix in Europe, and E.U. countries plan to increase that to more than 50 percent by 2050.

“Wind needs massive subsidies, and you are paying in Scotland and in U.K., and in all over the place where they have them, massive subsidies to have these ugly monsters all over the place,” Mr. Trump said in his meeting with Mr. Starmer.

The arm-twisting goes far beyond Mr. Trump’s actions during his first term, some observers said. As he did in 2017, Mr. Trump in January withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, a global pact among nearly 200 countries to fight climate change. But during the first term, Mr. Trump primarily focused his energy policy on withdrawing the United States from global discussions about climate change while he promoted domestic fossil fuel production.

This time around, the administration is “actively trying to undermine countries” on global warming, said David L. Goldwyn, president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, an energy consulting firm.

Several diplomats from other countries said that the administration has used increasingly aggressive tactics to influence international energy policies.

In February, Mr. Wright addressed a conference in London via video and called net zero (when the amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere is equal to or less than the amount removed) a “sinister goal” and criticized a British law to reach net zero by 2050.

In March, the Trump administration denounced the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted by nations unanimously in 2015 and include ending poverty and hunger, and addressing climate change. The administration said “the government of the United States must refocus on the interests of Americans,” and course-correct on things like “climate ideology.”

The Trump administration declined to attend global negotiations this summer that are a precursor to annual United Nations climate talks to be held in Brazil in November.

It also skipped an April meeting of the International Maritime Organization where the world’s largest shipping countries agreed to impose a minimum fee of $100 for every ton of greenhouse gases emitted by ships above certain thresholds as a way of curbing emissions. The body had been expected to formally adopt the fee in October.

But the administration’s announcement this month that it would reject the maritime organization deal shocked many with its blunt promise that the United States would “not hesitate to retaliate or explore remedies for our citizens” against other countries that support the shipping fee.

Meanwhile, virtually all of the Trump administration’s trade deals include requirements that the trading partners buy U.S. oil and gas.

South Korea promised to buy $100 billion worth of liquefied natural gas over an unstated period of time. Japan is also expected to invest $550 billion in the United States, partially focused on “energy infrastructure production.” A White House statement said that the money would include liquefied natural gas and advanced fuels. The administration said the United States and Japan also were planning a “major expansion of U.S. energy exports to Japan.” That is widely believed to be a reference to a proposed $44 billion project to ship gas to Asia from the North Slope of Alaska.

Europe narrowly avoided a trade war with Mr. Trump by agreeing, among other things, to purchase $750 billion in crude oil, natural gas, other petroleum derivatives and nuclear reactor fuel over three years.

On an annual basis, that would amount to more than three times the amount the bloc bought last year from the United States.

“You see a more systematic attempt to be a fossil fuel first strategy to everything that they do,” said Jake Schmidt, director of international programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

The administration may slow the transition to clean energy by other countries but cannot stop it, Mr. Schmidt said. Most countries that signed the Paris Agreement will submit more ambitious targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations this year, although some may temper those plans because of the U.S. position, he said.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, argued that the Trump administration was doing the right thing by pressuring countries to reject renewable energy.

“Europe is coming to the United States saying, ‘Help defend us against Russia, help us with Ukraine,’” Ms. Furchtgott-Roth said. “Where at the same time, they’re spending $350 billion a year on green energy investments that are slowing their economies.”

“It doesn’t seem to make very much sense to the Trump administration,” she said, adding, “I think we’re going to see more pressure.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-international-pressure-climate-oil.html?searchResultPosition=1

Trump Starts Investigation That Could Lead to Tariffs on Wind Turbines

The tariffs would hamper a clean energy industry that the president has often railed against.

By Ana Swanson, The New York Times, Aug. 21, 2025

Since taking office, President Trump has railed against wind power and the turbines that are needed to generate that energy. He has called the turbines ugly and inefficient, and criticized them for ruining landscapes as well as endangering whales and birds.

So it was curious when, on Thursday, the administration announced a trade investigation that could result in tariffs on imported wind turbines. The Trump administration has typically imposed tariffs to protect American companies against foreign competition and spur domestic production of critical products.

This time, laying out a path to impose tariffs could be an attempt to stymie an industry.

A federal filing released on Thursday showed that the Trump administration had initiated an investigation into foreign wind turbines on Aug. 13. Mr. Trump began the inquiry under a legal provision known as Section 232, which allows the president to apply tariffs to foreign products if their imports threaten national security. Mr. Trump has already used the provision to apply steep tariffs to cars, steel, aluminum and copper, and is threatening further such tariffs on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and airplanes.

Analysts at Capstone, a strategic consulting firm, said the investigation into wind turbines and their components would raise the price of imported materials that wind projects depend on. They said they believed the investigation was “an attempt to further hamper wind build-out.”

The analysts said that tariffs would be especially painful for developers of offshore wind projects like those underway in New York, since they tend to rely more heavily on imports. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump has frequently criticized wind turbines, despite the fact that they are a major source of energy in Republican-led states like Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas. The administration has pushed for the use of oil and gas rather than cleaner sources of energy, and recently released a slew of measures aimed at slowing both wind and solar installations.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Mr. Trump called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY.”

“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar. The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” the president wrote.

By raising the cost of imported wind turbines, tariffs would make wind energy more expensive compared with other types of energy. The United States imported wind components worth $2.83 billion last year, mostly from the European Union, Mexico and India, Capstone said.

Wind power and solar power provided 16 percent of the nation’s electricity last year and are some of the fastest-growing sources of power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/us/politics/trump-investigation-tariffs-wind-turbines.html

Environmental Leader Laments Loss of Bipartisanship on Climate Issues

Gene Karpinski, who retired from leading the League of Conservation Voters after two decades, said the group that once backed G.O.P. candidates now finds it difficult to do so.

By Carl Hulse, NY Times, Aug. 10, 2025

When Gene Karpinski took over as the president of the League of Conservation Voters nearly two decades ago, 20 percent of the candidates the environmental lobbying and political powerhouse endorsed for federal office were Republicans.

Last year, none were.

After almost 50 years as a top progressive advocate in Washington, Mr. Karpinski, 73, retired in the spring from his position leading the L.C.V., which is known for its voting scorecard that rates lawmakers on environmental policy. It was also once known for its record of bipartisanship in backing both Republicans and Democrats for office, a relative rarity for Washington interest groups.

But the polarization of Washington and the growing divide between the parties on climate issues has made bipartisanship much more difficult to embrace. President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s climate law was enacted three years ago over the uniform opposition of Republicans, who repealed large swaths of it in the recent domestic policy legislation President Trump signed into law.

In a recent interview, Mr. Karpinski, a well-known figure on Capitol Hill who started in Washington in 1977 as one of Ralph Nader’s “raiders” and headed the Public Interest Research Group for 21 years, reflected on the shifting politics of environmental policy.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

What do you see as your biggest achievement at the L.C.V.?

On the institutional side, we built it from a staff of about 30 to a staff of over 200, from a budget of $12 million to a budget of over $200 million and a state L.C.V. network that has also grown significantly. Just as importantly in the long run, we won some significant victories, including the biggest climate bill that the world has ever seen, which, as you know, passed in August of 2022 after a failed effort back in 2009 and 2010.

Learned a lot of lessons. So built the institution into a much more significant force, and won some important policies. Along the way, helped win a lot of elections and became the biggest player in the progressive community to help win elections, to elect climate champions and defeat climate enemies.

One of the interesting things about your group was that you were bipartisan — you endorsed candidates from both parties. Did that stay true through the end of your tenure?

When I first started, I would say about 20 percent of our endorsements at the federal level were Republicans. You needed to work both sides of the aisle to get things done. But that has shifted in the last bit of time, as the Republican Party, frankly, has become captured by the special interests, particularly the oil, gas and coal industries, and did their bidding.

The environment was historically a bipartisan issue. You remember in 1990, the Clean Air Act passed with over 400 votes in the House, 88 votes in the Senate. George [H.W.] Bush, the president, proudly signed it. That bill would not pass today, because the Republican Party leadership would not let that happen.

So has it become impossible for an environmental group such as the L.C.V. to get behind Republicans?

Not impossible, but much, much, much more difficult. I think it remains easier at the state level. We have a network of 33 state LCVs across the country. They do the same kind of work we do — do elections and win policies. Because the fossil fuel industry is not as powerful in some of these states, they can find more bipartisan support there. In Washington, it’s not impossible, but it’s not easy. [Representative] Brian Fitzpatrick is a shining example, someone from a swing district in Pennsylvania who has the highest Republican score. I think he’s probably got about a 70 lifetime score [out of 100]. There used to be a lot more Brian Fitzpatricks.

I remember when congressional Republicans were among the leaders of the environmental movement.

When I started in 2006, the guy I recruited to be my vice chair was a guy named Sherry Boehlert [former Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York]. When he retired in 2006, he chaired the House Science Committee as a Republican and held hearings on climate change, and talked about the problems with climate change. We had a whole slew of folks we would meet with all the time: [then-Representatives] Chris Shays, Wayne Gilchrist, Connie Morella, Mark Kirk and many, many more. We would meet in their offices and strategize with Republicans who cared about the environment. Right now the list is far too short.

You named the 2022 climate bill as a major achievement. Do you worry it will all come undone?

[Mr. Trump’s domestic policy legislation] was a horrible bill that will significantly hamper the ability to go forward at the federal level. The good news is, in state after state after state, we continue to make progress. In 2017, after Trump became president, we weren’t going to make any progress at the federal level on climate, so we went back to the states, elected a lot of new governors, a lot of state legislators. Literally less than 1 percent of the public lived in a state with a policy that said we need 100 percent clean energy back in 2017. Now over 40 percent of the country lives in a state with 100 percent clean-energy policy, and the programs will continue in most states.

The progress at the federal level has been severely impacted by the ugly bill and what the [Environmental Protection Agency and Department Of Energy] are doing as well. And the latest E.P.A. proposal coming out very soon — to declare climate change pollution does not impact public health — is appallingly dishonest, and would be deadly for generations to come. We have to continue to play the best damn defense, but we can continue to be on offense in state after state after state.

One of the subjects that emerged in the debate over the so-called big, beautiful bill was a new push to sell public lands for revenue. One of the main priorities of the L.C.V. is to keep public land public. Does it concern you that there’s a new discussion to unload federal property in the West?

It’s absolutely concerning. The good news on that is even most Republicans in the West said that goes too far, because people in the West appreciate, respect and enjoy those public lands, and they bring a lot of resources to the state, which is great. That was a rare example in the moment we’re in where there was bipartisan opposition to that crazy proposal, and therefore it failed.

In recent years, how much did the L.C.V. typically invest in political campaigns?

2024 was our biggest ever. Go back to when I started, it was a little less than $5 million. If you add in the state and federal in 2024, we invested over $160 million in mostly national, but also state elections as well.

But no Republicans?

At the federal level, we did not support any Republicans in 2024. Definitely in some of the states we did. We made support of the Inflation Reduction Act a litmus test. As you know, that passed on a purely partisan basis.

Hopefully that can change again over time, because we want to build back more bipartisan support. But it’s really hard. Even those who want to do the right thing: They fly in the face of leadership, because the leadership on this issue in the Republican Party at the national level is just atrocious. They’ve sold their heart and soul to the big polluters. The polluters are getting their payback, and it’s ugly for the public.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/us/environmental-leader-bipartisanship-climate.html?searchResultPosition=1

How a Carbon Tax Plan in Europe Survived (Mostly)

Austria tried a combination of taxes and rebates to reduce emissions.

By Jim Tankersley, The New York Times, August 7, 2025

A few years ago, Austria adopted a climate policy that taxed carbon emissions, but with a twist: The government sent the money back to taxpayers.

The idea was to reduce the use of fossil fuels but keep Austrians spending. If the plan worked, it would make a dent in the country’s greenhouse gas output but not the national economy.

This year a new government scrapped that plan. But only half of it.

Austria’s leaders decided keep the tax but eliminate the rebate payments, which they called the Klimabonus. The decision was a welcome one to supporters of sharper emissions reductions.

Austria is a relatively small country with a relatively light contribution to global emissions. Still, it has pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, a decade ahead of the European Union target. Its carbon tax plan was meant to be a politically sustainable pillar of that effort.

The goal was to prod people to change their habits, like deciding to drive less and walk or take the bus instead, without denting overall consumer spending or making people furious about higher energy costs. The Klimabonus varied by region, with people receiving more money if they had less access to public transportation, and thus less ability to change their habits. Last year, the annual payment ranged from 145 euros to 290 euros for an adult resident.

Similar tax-and-refund ideas have animated a long line of American climate policy proposals that lawmakers and policy experts have tried push through Congress, going back to the Obama administration.

Those plans never got off the ground in the United States, but they have in other countries. Canada started taxing carbon in 2019 and refunding most of the revenue. That experiment ended abruptly this year, when the new prime minister, Mark Carney, canceled both the tax and the refund payments. The tax had drawn strong criticism from voters at a time of high energy prices and high inflation. Experts suggested that voters didn’t see the refund as an offset, in part because the government didn’t explain it very well.

That wasn’t what happened in Austria. The Klimabonus wasn’t a runaway hit with voters, said Sigrid Stagl, an economist and the founder of the Institute for Ecological Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. But it was popular enough that lawmakers decided to keep the carbon tax even when energy prices jumped. The bonus was, she said, “sort of the political defense mechanism” that saved the tax.

What appears to have killed the bonus but saved the tax was cold, hard budget math.

Austria’s economy is stuck in a recession, and its budget deficit has swelled. To comply with European Union rules, the new government had to reduce that deficit by some combination of spending cuts, higher taxes and stimulating economic activity.

Eliminating the bonus saved 2 billion euros, or about $2.3 billion, a year. Cutting the tax would have wiped that savings out.

The chancellor, Christian Stocker, told me there was another reason to scrap the rebate: It wasn’t working like the theory suggested it would.

Austria’s emissions have fallen since the pandemic, though it’s unclear how much of that is attributable to the carbon tax. Mr. Stocker and the vice chancellor, Andreas Babler, both stressed to me that their government remained committed to the 2040 net-zero target.

But Mr. Stocker said the Klimabonus was not just meant to be a climate measure.

“It was also a compensation payment to maintain disposable income,” he said. And when it was sent to Austrians, the money “remained in savings accounts at banks. It did not go into consumption. And therefore, the effect we expected was not achieved.”

If you squint, you can see some parallels to Republicans’ recent efforts to hollow out of the climate measures signed into law by former President Joseph R. Biden. But they only go so far.

Mr. Biden and his team built their law around tax incentives meant to spur investment and consumer spending on emissions-reducing technologies like solar power and electric vehicles. By repealing most of those incentives, congressional Republicans generated budget savings to partially offset other tax cuts they liked better. They couldn’t have done that with a carbon tax.

Then again, it seems unlikely that Congress would have passed one in the first place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/climate/austria-carbon-tax-klimabonus.html

EPA places staffers who signed ‘dissent’ letter on leave

By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, July 3, 2025

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is placing staffers who signed a letter of dissent against the Trump administration’s actions and policies on leave.

The EPA says it has placed 144 staffers on administrative leave as it investigates the letter. It’s not entirely clear whether they will face further punishment after the probe.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said in a written statement. 

In a letter made public on Monday, current and former EPA staffers said that the administration’s policies “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.”

They expressed concerns about five issues in particular, saying that the administration is undermining public trust, ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters, reversing EPA’s progress in America’s most vulnerable communities, dismantling the Office of Research and Development and promoting a culture of fear.

“Your decisions and actions will reverberate for generations to come. EPA under your leadership will not protect communities from hazardous chemicals and unsafe drinking water, but instead will increase risks to public health and safety,” the staffers wrote to Administrator Lee Zeldin.

In response, the EPA said Monday that it would “continue to work with states, tribes, and communities to advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.”

Nicole Cantello, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 704, which represents EPA employees in the Midwest, told The Hill that putting staffers on administrative leave was ” blatant retaliation by the Trump administration.”

“We don’t swear an oath to the Trump administration, we swear an oath to the Constitution  and so we don’t feel  like we violated that oath or that we did anything wrong by signing this letter,” she said, adding that some of the staffers who were placed on leave are actually “crucial players in trying to implement Trump’s policies at EPA.”

Zeldin told reporters in January that staff who are “not committed” to President Trump’s directives should not be there. 

“I don’t believe that anyone should be here at EPA who is not committed to the agency mission and the lawful directives coming from the duly elected president of the United States,” he said at the time.

The EPA previously fired staff who worked on issues related to environmental justice and tackling pollution in underserved communities, arguing that it did not align with the administration’s position on diversity, equity and inclusion.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5383820-epa-staffers-trump-dissent-letter-zeldin/