EPA Staff Cuts Could Jeopardize Broad Deregulatory Push, Observers Say

Multiple observers say the Trump administration’s plan to significantly cut EPA staffing levels and budget could jeopardize the agency’s sweeping deregulatory agenda, while environmentalists are also blasting the plans as sharply at odds with the agency’s mission to protect the environment and public health. “You need the programmatic expertise and the legal expertise to write compelling explanations for what you’re doing,” Thomas Lorenzen, an attorney with Crowell & Moring who previously served in the Justice Department (DOJ) environment section, says...