I suspect they don’t have quite as cool stuff to steal at EPA Regional headquarters.
From the sounds of it, a lot of the employees are already heading for the exits, even ones not really senior enough to expect the ax. The first Trump EPA was too chaotic to efficiently clear out the organization, the first two years under Pruitt were paralyzed and Wheeler spent much of his time cleaning up after Pruitt. It was nonetheless a demoralizing place to be, and all the signs point to the fact that there will be far more focus this time out.
Interesting reading this from a couple of perspectives. Firstly in the UK there are employment regs that kind of prevent clearouts like this. So its unfamiliar territory to me. Generally even directors get more leeway in a takeover etc.
Then I’m wondering what a US without any level of Environmental Protection looks like but i’m not familiar with their scope of work. I suspect that building up the US automobile industry is not one of them (quote from Zeldin).
Then lastly, I wonder what chemtrail theorists will say now?
There is in the US as well. Only a small number of Federal government positions are political hires making them subject to the will of the president. The rest are regular employees with the same sort of worker protections as anyone else. During Trump first term they fucked around a LOT trying to find way to remove these career professionals. A common tactic was to do large scale reorganizations requiring people moved to different geographical offices (no relocation assistance provided) and unwillingness to comply would be viewed as a notice of resignation. By the end of their time in office they had stumbled upon a strategy referred to as Schedule F, that essentially reclassifies the entire civil servant rank of government into a category that can be removed without cause. They stumbled upon it too late so it was untested in the courts so it was an open question on whether it would have worked for them.
But the courts have now signaled willingness to comply with whatever he asks for, and solving this problem was the primary reason Project 2025 was undertaken. It includes step by step plans to remove large sections of government who theoretically should not be threatened by a change to the administration. Very few people have any expectation of it being effectively challenged, which is why these civil servants are all preparing for an exit.
History tells us that state regulations have some protective effect over a lax federal government. For instance, CA has stricter regulations on car emmission than the Feds do. CA is such a big market that US manufacturers cannot ignore it, and once they have to manufacture to CA standards it doesnt make sense to have a separate run producing a different set of cars to the lower Fed standards. So in some cases CA and NY can act to work on a national level even in the absence of strong federal regulation. But that is mainly related to products. It doesnt apply to process and where state regs on processes are stricter than federal…companies can just move out of state to a Texas
To add to @Limiescouse 's comments, there is an important difference between the US system and the Westminster style. In our systems, the permanent secretaries/deputy ministers are career civil servants expected to serve what government has been elected. That frays around the edges, but largely holds true. By contrast, the US system is far more political. The corresponding deputy secretary positions, assistant secretaries, and the undersecretaries positions are appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. For most of those, the deputy undersecretaries are also subject to that process. Beyond that, in some departments the next two tiers are also presidential appointments, just not subject to Senate confirmation.
The effect is that for climate policy in the UK, the political is in Cabinet, DEFRA is supposed to be apolitical. In the US, the first 3 tiers are Presidential appointments, at least the next one down are nominally Presidential but de facto made by the first 3 tiers. As such, career EPA employees either become political or are somewhat capped.
The host country of the climate conference is pushing for fossil fuel deals under the table. Biden, Xi, Macron, Modi and Von der Leyer did not even bother to attend.
They might as well be done with the whole charade.
The ‘miracle’ technologies already exist: wind, water, solar, geothermy. What is lacking is the willingness to carry them through at high pace. As you say, the general public don’t care, and so, people like Trump, who represents the oil and gas industry, keep getting into power.
For me we need something that just replaces oil, petrol for the normal person. In the US they still want to drive their 5L v8 truck with fuel at however many cents a gallon it was 10 years ago.
We really need spmething that offers that cheaper and easier. Even then it would be a battle. Hydrogen for example blows up with MTG on board. Not quite well enough it seems.
The grip oil has on politics, business, even peoples thinking needs to change somehow.
