The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: Trump Stocks E.P.A. With Oil, Gas and Chemical Lobbyists
Dear Diary. My nation is grieving today after a plane and helicopter crash that killed 64 people occurred over the Potomac River in Washington D.C. last night.
While awful, this event was nowhere near the scope and magnitude of tragedy that will occur in the future because of an out-of-control climate because of our decades long dithering on cutting carbon emissions. As the news media covers the plane crash, its not focused on Trumps governmental picks to undo any work done by previous administrations to protect our environment. The human race might be doomed because we are too focused on small horrendous events and not enough on big picture existential threats
Here are more details from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/climate/epa-staff-oil-gas-chemical-industry-lobbyists.html
Trump Stocks E.P.A. With Oil, Gas and Chemical Lobbyists
Top political appointees are already at the E.P.A. preparing to erase the agency’s climate rules and pollution controls. Many of them have tried it before.
Lee Zeldin, President Trump’s nominee for E.P.A. chief, hasn’t had his confirmation vote scheduled yet, but he already has marshaled a squad of more than a dozen deputies and senior advisers.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman Hiroko Tabuchi and Coral Davenport
- Jan. 25, 2025
President Trump is stocking the Environmental Protection Agency with officials who have served as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries, many of whom worked in his first administration to weaken climate and pollution protections.
Lee Zeldin, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the E.P.A., has little experience with environmental policy. He will be expected to hit the ground running, though, to fulfill Mr. Trump’s fire hose of orders directing the agency to cut regulations.
Mr. Zeldin’s Senate confirmation vote has not yet been scheduled but he has already marshaled more than a dozen deputies and senior advisers. The quick appointments are in contrast to Mr. Trump’s first term, when many Republicans hesitated to join the administration, and internal squabbling delayed the selection of the deputy administrator as well as the chief air pollution regulator for nearly a year. Some appointees have already moved into their offices.
Top appointees include David Fotouhi, Mr. Zeldin’s second-in-command, a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos; Alex Dominguez, a former oil lobbyist who will work on automobile emissions; and Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist for both the oil and chemical industries who is expected to be the top air pollution regulator.
The division of E.P.A. that evaluates the safety of new chemicals now includes Nancy Beck, a longtime chemical-industry lobbyist, and Lynn Ann Dekleva, who has been working for the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. Both are veterans of the first Trump term.
“It’s alarming to see former industry lobbyists and attorneys who, until recently, were paid by their clients to weaken pollution standards, nominated to high-ranking positions at E.P.A. where they will have the power to undermine regulations meant to protect the public from these same industries,” said Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group.
E.P.A.’s headquarters in Washington. Mr. Trump’s first E.P.A. had a reputation for being sloppy, leading to cases being overturned or thrown out of court. Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said the agency was “putting together a leadership team composed of some of the brightest experts and legal minds” and all would “uphold E.P.A.’s mission to protect human health and the environment.”
“President Trump advanced conservation and environmental stewardship in his first term and the E.P.A. will continue this legacy in his second term,” she said.
To be deputy administrator, Mr. Fotouhi must be confirmed by the Senate. Most of the other political appointees that have been named so far, including Ms. Beck, are entering E.P.A. as advisers or other positions that do not require confirmation.
The speed in assembling the E.P.A. team isn’t the only difference between the first and second Trump terms. Regulatory attorneys say the new team has more experience. Mr. Trump’s first E.P.A. had a reputation for being sloppy, leading to dozens of cases being overturned or thrown out by the courts.
“This group is arriving with more expertise in deploying the machinery of the agency, including to unravel regulations from the prior administration,” said Kyle Danish, a partner at Van Ness Feldman, a Washington law firm that advises energy clients. “They all look like they graduated one level from what they did in the first Trump administration.”
Mr. Zeldin’s deputy, the Harvard-educated lawyer David Fotouhi, left corporate practice in 2017 to join the E.P.A. during the first Trump administration. He rose to acting general counsel and became a central figure in Mr. Trump’s efforts to weaken or delete dozens of regulations that were designed to protect air and water from pollution.
David Fotouhi, shown speaking during a Federalist Society event from 2022 posted on YouTube, will be Mr. Zeldin’s second-in-command. Credit…via YouTube
Mr. Fotouhi has a long record of representing polluters against the E.P.A. and other regulatory agencies. Last year, he challenged the E.P.A.’s ban of asbestos, arguing on behalf of automakers that the E.P.A. had failed to demonstrate that asbestos presented an unreasonable risk of injury. Under Mr. Biden, the United States joined 55 other countries that have banned asbestos, which is known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and laryngeal cancer.
Mr. Fotouhi has defended industrial plants accused by the E.P.A. of violating the Clean Air Act and toxic-chemicals rules, and helped corporations repel proposed regulations. He represented a major operator of coal-burning power plants challenging rules to prevent toxic coal ash from contaminating groundwater.
And in 2021, he represented a paper-mill company in a lawsuit brought by Maine landowners whose land was contaminated with “forever chemicals,” also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, linked to cancer and other diseases.
“It was the typical corporate defense,” said Elizabeth Bailey, an environmental attorney who represented the plaintiffs. “Which is: You can’t prove that it’s us.”
Something’s Poisoning America’s Land. Farmers Fear ‘Forever Chemicals.’
E.P.A. Will Make Polluters Pay to Clean Up Two ‘Forever Chemicals’
E.P.A. Severely Limits Pollution From Coal-Burning Power Plants
Mr. Dominguez, the former oil lobbyist, is now a deputy assistant administrator who will serve as a point person for one of Mr. Trump’s highest priorities, canceling the largest climate regulation in history, designed by the Biden administration to cut the automobile pollution that is heating the planet. Under that rule, more than half the new passenger vehicles sold in the United States would have to be zero emissions by 2032.
Attempts during by the first Trump administration to weaken tailpipe pollution limits were mired in legal and logistical errors and delays. Mr. Dominguez, a veteran of that effort, is expected to be better prepared this time.
Between Trump administrations, Mr. Dominguez worked for the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and gas industry. The group delivered a detailed wish list to Mr. Trump, topped by the rollback of the tailpipe pollution rules. Oil companies oppose the rules because the transition to electric vehicles would hurt demand for gasoline.
Abigale Tardif is returning to the E.P.A. air pollution office after serving there in the first Trump administration. She has worked as a policy analyst for Americans for Prosperity, part of the conservative network of groups founded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. She has also lobbied for Marathon Petroleum Corporation and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a major industry lobbying group.
Last summer, that group launched what it described as a “seven figure” campaign of advertising, phone calls and text messages against the tailpipe rule, which it falsely called “Biden’s E.P.A. car ban.”
Nancy Beck led an effort against chemical regulations in the first Trump administration.Credit…Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times
Dr. Beck, a former senior director with the American Chemistry Council, is now a senior E.P.A. adviser on chemical safety and pollution. She led a wide-ranging pushback against chemical regulations during the first Trump administration, as well as what a subsequent investigation described as political interference in agency science and policymaking.
Dr. Beck rewrote rules that made it harder to track the health consequences of a “forever chemical” linked to cancer, and therefore to regulate it. She also helped soften limits on asbestos and methylene chloride, a harmful chemical found in paint thinners.
Dr. Dekleva, also a former senior figure at the chemical industry trade group and another veteran of the first Trump term, is returning to the E.P.A. to regulate new chemicals. She worked for more than three decades at DuPont, the chemicals giant. Recent reports by the E.P.A.’s Office of Inspector General said that, under Dr. Dekleva, employees were pushed to approve new chemicals and were retaliated against if they raised concerns.
Dr. Beck and Dr. Dekleva did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Szabo was named as a senior adviser to the administrator but he is expected to become the agency’s top air pollution regulator, according to three people with knowledge of the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. He has lobbied on behalf of the American Chemistry Council, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers association and the American Petroleum Institute, records show.
Mr. Szabo also is a government veteran, having worked in the White House Office of Management and Budget and as a senior counsel for the White House Council on Environmental Quality during Mr. Trump’s first term.
“They understand the policies well, they understand the agency well, which puts them far ahead of where they were eight years ago,” said Dimitri Karakitsos, a Republican energy and chemicals lobbyist.
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities. More about Lisa Friedman
Hiroko Tabuchi covers pollution and the environment for The Times. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years in Tokyo and New York. More about Hiroko Tabuchi
Coral Davenport covers energy and environment policy, with a focus on climate change, for The Times. More about Coral Davenport
Related:
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)