Gorsuch. Gorsuch?
Why did I know that name?
I’d never heard of Neil Gorsuch, a respected federal appellate judge until Donald Trump nominated him to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Had to be someone else.
That happens to a lot of reporters and editors. Stuff cluttering our brains resembles a pointillist painting; myriad colorful dots waiting for an inspiration to connect them.
Then I remembered: Anne Gorsuch.
No, not a former girlfriend.
The judge’s bio solved my problem. His mom, Anne, was Ronald Reagan’s budget- and job-slashing boss of the Environmental Protection Agency who ended up in contempt of Congress.
She made the previous decade — when the EPA was created and supported by Nixon, Ford and Carter — seem utopian. Whatever their failings, all three appreciated science. With Reagan’s election in 1980, they were followed by a California Republican who echoed Western antipathy to regulations that cut into their mythic freedom from government.
Anne Gorsuch’s appointment provoked anxiety among the hundreds at Cincinnati’s EPA national research center near the University of Cincinnati. Formerly exuberant researchers became cautious, even though they’d known me for years as Enquirer environment reporter.
Here’s how William D. Ruckelshaus, Gorsuch’s predecessor and successor, recalled that era last week in a New York Times op-ed piece defending the agency:
“(O)ver the agency’s first 10 years, it made enormous progress in bringing the country’s worst pollution problems under control despite resistance from polluting industries and their lobbyists. A worried and outraged public had demanded action, and the government responded.
“Yet the agency and its central mission came under attack during the 1980 presidential campaign. The Clean Air Act was criticized as an obstacle to growth. The agency was seen as bloated, inefficient, exceeding its congressional mandates and costing jobs. The Reagan administration and its new administrator were going to fix that. Sound familiar?
“The EPA I returned to in the spring of 1983, only some 18 months into President Reagan’s first term, was dispirited and in turmoil. Its administrator, Anne M. Gorsuch, had been cited for contempt of Congress. Its budget had been reduced by almost 25 percent, with more cuts promised. Staffing had been slashed.
“There were internal conflicts, resignations of key officials, complaints of documents being destroyed and reports of secret meetings with officials from companies under investigation by the agency.
“One political appointee, Rita Lavelle, was facing accusations of lying to Congress, for which she would later be convicted. And voters were taking notice. President Reagan discovered that government backsliding on protecting Americans’ health and the environment would not be tolerated by an awakened, angry and energized public.”
That was 35 years ago. Today, it’s worse. Past and present EPA employees publicly opposed confirmation of Scott Pruitt to head the agency he hopes to strangle.
It’s so bad today that EPA and other science-based federal agencies and departments reportedly are hiding their data from Trump ideological censors. Some agencies reportedly are exporting their data on climate change and global warming to servers in Canada. Whether Trump appointees are destroying data is not clear, but they are making it harder to find.
But even research that isn’t degraded or canceled will face partisan political tests and gag orders. There is nothing subtle about this. Doug Ericksen, the head of communications for Trump’s EPA transition team, said agency scientists probably would have to have their work reviewed before it can be released.
Ericksen told NPR that the Trump administration wants internal vetting before scientists’ work could be shared outside the agency.
“We’ll take a look at what’s happening so that the voice coming from the EPA is one that’s going to reflect the new administration,” Ericksen said.
Previously, EPA’s voice arose from the research. Now, it’ll be “alternative facts” mustered to support Trump’s beliefs.
A measure of the intended corruption is reflected in Trump’s disregard for the agency’s scientific integrity policy. It prohibits “all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other Agency leadership from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions.”
Just as Trump undermined confidence in our elections and courts, he is embracing classic tobacco industry strategies to make science itself seem untrustworthy.
At greatest risk is evidence-based research on which the EPA builds its regulations. Purging data and threatening RIFs — Reductions in Force — didn’t wait for Trump’s inauguration. Trump is a climate change denier and his underlings demanded names of researchers working on climate change. EPA and other departments, agencies and grant recipients refused.
Pruitt shares his boss’s contempt for science that doesn’t conform to their politics. He’s no fan of the news media, either.
As opaque as the Obama administration could be when it came to transparency, Trump is worse. The Society of Environmental Journalists — of which I’ve been a member — is working overtime to provide tips, guides and resources to reporters facing hostility rarely seen in decades.
A related problem is the loss of journalists — age, newsroom purges — who reported early EPA battles over dirty air, toxic water, contaminated waste sites and other environmental hazards to health and life. The Enquirer only recently reinstated the environment beat after decades of disregard.
Good luck to local reporters trying to find out what’s happening to EPA employees and research here. Cincinnati jobs and graduate fellowships could vanish.
We’ve been through this paroxysm before. In the 1980s, EPA employees responded to gag orders with leaks. Think of a sieve. Leakers called. Or wrote. Or remarked casually as they ran into me in EPA hallways.
They trusted me to protect their identities; talking openly to a reporter could paint a bullseye on the back of their white lab coats.
Officially, the agency hid its lights under a bushel, but to their credit, no one lied or misled me when I called, even when it was obvious I was responding to a newsworthy leak.
When I knew whom to call, I contacted that scientist, administrator or technician. Some responded directly. Others — unnerved by my unexpected attention — asked press officers how to respond.
“Honestly,” seemed to be the steady answer.
CONTACT BEN L. KAUFMAN: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Mar 15-22, 2017.