All Quiet on the Climate Front
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Summer's around the corner. Heat waves are going to be freaking us out. It's as good a time as any to check in on climate change here at Today Explained from Vox.
What historical events shaped the Environmental Protection Agency?
So let's start with the EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency was signed into existence by a Republican, Richard Nixon. Can you believe? This was way back in 1970 when it was okay for the right to care about the planet. After a massive oil spill off the California coast, there was a ton of movement around environmental stewardship in this country. We had our first Earth Day, the Clean Air Act passed with only one person in all of Congress voting no, and that same Congress, along with Tricky Dick, created the EPA. 56 years later, in this Anthropocene era of ours, another Republican administration is doing everything in its power to destroy the EPA, all while we civilians contend with the effects of human-caused climate change.
That story is coming up on the show today.
What's up, y'all? I'm Skylar Diggins, seven-time WNBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years, covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is AmMom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Hey, everybody. Sue Bird here. This week on A Touch More, I'm celebrating the start of the WNBA by breaking down what I saw on opening weekend. And we have NBC's one and only Maria Taylor to talk about her boundary-breaking career in sports journalism, the NBA playoffs, and her thoughts on which teams have the best chance of making the WNBA finals. Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
This is a big one if you're into environment.
Elizabeth Colbert is into environment. We asked her on Today Explained because she recently wrote a big old doozy for The New Yorker called Can the EPA Survive Lee Zeldin? It opened with a story. several dozen, we're not sure exactly how many at this point, employees of the EPA signed a letter addressed to the administrator, Lee Zeldin, objecting to much of what he was doing, objecting to what they saw as the overly partisan nature of his leadership, objecting to his plans to eliminate the EPA scientific division.
Today, we stand together in dissent against the current administration's focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise.
We call on you to reaffirm your testimony, honor your oath to the Constitution, and renew your commitment to become the environmental steward the public entrusted you to be.
And they, according to people I spoke to, sort of didn't expect much to come of this letter. But in fact, what did occur was when they presented it to him, there ensued a sort of electronic manhunt and they searched after and everyone that they could identify, and that was about almost 150 people, they placed on administrative leave. And several of them, very senior people, were fired. How does Lee Zeldin become someone on Trump's radar? He was a big, big Trump supporter during the first impeachment inquiry. The president of the United States knows that this is a total sham. Many of my constituents, a lot of the American public knows that this is a total charade.
How is the current administration impacting the EPA's role?
Lee Zeldin was on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a lot of the closed-door sessions. He questioned a lot of the witnesses very aggressively. He was constantly tweeting things out. I've sat through every interview of this so-called impeachment inquiry, and the president hasn't done anything to possibly impeach him for. Nothing. He was a big defender of Trump at that time, and Trump clearly took notice.
Thanks, Lee.
I think that is when Lee Zeldin really came to the attention of Trump. And does Lee Zeldin have strong feelings about climate science, the environment? What's his philosophy? Well, as a congressman, he represented the East End of Long Island, which is... a very low-lying part of the world and experiencing a lot of flooding owing to sea level rise.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:07
2
What historical events shaped the Environmental Protection Agency?
0:07–3:51
3
How is the current administration impacting the EPA's role?
3:51–20:17
4
What controversies surround Lee Zeldin's leadership at the EPA?
20:17–25:55
5
What are Lee Zeldin's views on climate change?
25:55–30:16