Former EPA chief: Environmental regulations targeted by Trump benefit ‘normal human beings’

The former head of the Environmental Protection Agency slammed the Trump administration Monday for cutting regulations, saying such rules benefit “normal human beings.” 

“They say, ‘Let’s get rid of the rules because they’re expensive and let’s forget about who they benefit,’ which is you and I — normal human beings,” Gina McCarthy, the Obama administration’s EPA administrator, said on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” 

Trump appointed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator early in his presidency. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt was an aggressive critic of the EPA and frequently sued the agency.

Trump’s proposed budget also included significant cuts to EPA programs. 

McCarthy also criticized the Trump administration for removing years of data from the agency’s public website. 

{mosads}“This is a wholesale wiping out of historical record of what this agency has been doing with public dollars for decades, not just the past eight years,” she said. “This is unprecedented in terms of the scope of information that’s been taken down. Information that’s public information. People have a right to be able to access it. And no president has ever done this before.”

McCarthy speculated that the timing of the data removal had to do with the recent People’s Climate March protests that occurred around the country over the weekend. 

She said the administration’s plan to get public input is a sham because industries have already met and are pushing their interests at the White House.