Today, ThinkProgress reported that Andrew Wheeler’s EPA has hired David Dunlap, the former director of policy and regulatory affairs for Koch Industries to serve as deputy assistant administrator for research and development.
In his new role, Dunlap will help oversee the risk-assessment program that, earlier this year, produced a health study linking formaldehyde to cancer. Dunlap’s former employer, Koch Industries, through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC, is currently lobbying the EPA against the study’s release. In other words, Dunlap has gone from an outside role, pushing to hide the dangers of toxics and chemicals, to an inside role, potentially serving in a position that ensures risks toxics and chemicals are ignored by the EPA.
Dunlap isn’t the first hire by Andrew Wheeler and Scott Pruitt with direct ties to corporate polluters who have been fighting to gut safeguards and protections -- he’s one of many. Of the 59 EPA hires tracked by the AP over the past year, nearly half have strong industry ties, with roughly one-third previously having worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel corporations, or other corporate polluters. Let’s start at the top:
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler
Wheeler is a formal coal lobbyist for Murray Energy, a vocal opponent of limits on coal pollution. Wheeler is now overseeing the repeal of the Clean Power Plan and is rolling back MATS, which protects us from mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.
Bill Wehrum serves as the assistant administrator for air and radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency
Wehrum previously lobbied for the American Petroleum Institute, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the American Chemistry Council, and the National Association of Manufacturers.
Today, the EPA moved to weaken guidelines on radiation, claiming some radiation exposure is actually healthy. This will save fossil fuel companies money while putting workers at fossil fuel extraction sites at risk of greater exposure.
Elizabeth “Tate” Bennett serves as deputy associate administrator of the EPA’s Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations.
Bennett came to the EPA from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which opposed nearly a dozen EPA regulations, including the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule.
Troy Lyons works at the EPA on proposed safeguards limiting methane emissions from new oil and gas wells
Lyons spent 2016 lobbying for Hess Corp., a New York City-based oil company. Hess opposed safeguards for methane emissions.
Jeffrey Sands was hired as a senior adviser for agriculture at the EPA.
Sands previously worked as a top lobbyist for pesticide manufacturer Syngenta.
David Ross was hired as an EPA assistant administrator for water.
Ross previously lobbied for Peabody Energy.
Erick Baptist was hired as the EPA’s senior deputy general counsel.
Before working at the EPA, Baptist lobbied for the American Petroleum Institute.
Dennis Forsgren was also hired as an assistant administrator for water at the EPA.
Forsgren previously lobbied for General Electric and Exxon.
George Sugiyama was hired as a senior advisor at the EPA.
Previously, Sugiyama lobbied for the National Mining Association and Southern Co.
Trump, Wheeler, and Pruitt have filled the agency tasked with protecting Americans from polluters chock full of polluters from each and every polluting industry. Americans deserve an EPA that will protect our families from dangerous pollution, not one that answers to every polluter’s beck and call.