April 12, 2017
Washington, D.C.
In response to the memo released on April 11 instructing government agencies to begin making plans to reduce their workforces, and the press briefing done by Mick Mulvaney, in which he singled out the EPA, Greenpeace spokesperson Jason Schwartz said:
Cutting thousands of staff from the EPA will not increase accountability or effectiveness. It will only hobble a critical agency charged with protecting communities across the vast expanse of the American continent. EPA is already stretched to the limit guarding our homes from radon, our water from lead and hormone-disrupting chemicals, our environment from corporate polluting criminals, and people everywhere from the ravages of climate change. The more you stretch the EPA, the more you increase the real threat of harm to our families.
Wrapping the diminishment of key agencies in the contrived jargon of Randian, free-market virtue is sickening. Government agencies do not run like private businesses because they are not accountable to shareholders–they are accountable to the public. Everybody knows the Trump Administration wants to slash the EPA so companies can wantonly dump their waste on our land and water. If the Trump Administration really wanted accountability, effective governance, or to drain the swamp, it would look around at the wealthy, lying, corporate, establishment goons it is comprised of and self-destruct.
Contact: Jason Schwartz, [email protected], 347-452-3752
