6 former EPA bosses call for agency reset after election

Six former Environmental Protection Agency chiefs are calling for an agency reset after President Donald Trump’s regulation-chopping, industry-minded first term, backing a detailed plan by former EPA staffers that ranges from renouncing political influence in regulation to backing climate-friendly electric vehicles.

Most living former EPA heads joined in Wednesday's appeal, with Trump’s first EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, being the notable exception. The group — William Reilly, Lee Thomas, Carol Browner, Christine Todd Whitman, Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy — served under Republican and Democratic presidents.

The Environmental Protection Network, a bipartisan group of more than 500 former EPA senior managers and employees, crafted the hundreds of pages of recommendations for a change of course at the agency.

The group said the road map was meant to guide whatever administration the Nov. 3 presidential election puts in place, although many of the proposals are implicitly or explicitly critical of Trump EPA actions. The former EPA heads’ accompanying statement did not mention Trump but said they were “concerned about the current state of affairs at EPA.”

Some of the reset recommendations were aimed at the Trump era, such as minimizing industry and political influence on science-based decisions in regulatory actions, combating climate change and cutting air pollution with electric vehicles, and others. The proposals are in line with critics' complaints about Trump and with many of Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden’s proposals.

The EPA, now under the leadership of former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, has been an avid agent of Trump’s drive to cut regulations he sees as unnecessarily burdensome to business, including the coal, gas and oil industries. The administration says it is rolling back rules...