On the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated, he signed an executive order to begin an immediate review of EPA information issued during the Trump administration under the leadership of first Scott Pruitt followed by Andrew Wheeler. Unsurprisingly, the ex-president who suggested people inject themselves with bleach to cure the coronavirus, looked directly at the sun during a solar eclipse, and tried to convince everyone that windmills cause cancer appeared to play fast and loose with the facts on climate change science.
The Biden admin. will look back through environmental policies and decisions made by the Trump admin. to see whether scientific data may have been manipulated or intentionally suppressed, according to a letter from EPA Chief Regan to staff. https://t.co/sDNiHlo69S
— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 24, 2021
Data that has been manipulated or deliberately hidden from public view continues to be reviewed by the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan. Regan has since reported that the misleading information was even worse than first thought. For now, he and his team are still analyzing data.
According to NBC News:
‘In a letter to staff obtained by NBC News, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said the agency would make good on a presidential memorandum on scientific integrity signed by President Joe Biden by updating policies, reports or data that suffered from political interference under former President Donald Trump.’
NEW: EPA is making a public accounting of attacks on science under Trump. Biden officials said the violations were even worse than they suspected. https://t.co/ZQ1QW5UnV1
— Lisa Friedman (@LFFriedman) March 24, 2021
Regan stressed the importance of putting the science over politics, reminding government officials who refuse to pass environmental protection legislation that climate change will hurt those least able to survive it, a fact that should give anyone elected to represent and protect the people they serve pause.
‘When politics drives science rather than science informing policy, we are more likely to make policy choices that sacrifice the health of the most vulnerable among us…manipulating, suppressing or otherwise impeding science has real world consequences for human health and the environment.’
EPA, established by Conservative Richard Nixon! brings science back to website after Trump purge https://t.co/y1gquB8eZS #ClimateAction
— Acupuncture San Diego Eyton Shalom (@EytonShalom) March 20, 2021
From the beginning of the Trump presidency, information on the EPA website went missing, updates included information that contradicted previous science, and all of that effort was motivated by the right’s fight to make wealthy Americans wealthier. That seems to have motivated most of Trump’s appointed officials, especially since most of them were very wealthy themselves.
‘Under Trump’s EPA, led first by Scott Pruitt and then Andrew Wheeler, the EPA was regularly accused of manipulating science and data for political purposes and to justify far more lenient regulations on polluting industries whose emissions contribute to global warming. The EPA during the Trump years removed climate change data from its website, and top scientists and long-serving policy experts left the agency at an alarming pace.’
.@EPAMichaelRegan has ordered up a review of @EPA science advisors and policies
This comes as the agency has already pulled back a Trump EPA assessment and its "secret science" rule
Here's the email
🔒https://t.co/oQGa69H0nE pic.twitter.com/XLsQAqz3QJ
— Kevin Bogardus (@KevinBogardus) March 24, 2021
