"Inside the 'Radical Transformation' of America’s Environmental Role" Article Reflection No. 148 (8/3/2025)

Article: “Inside the ‘Radical Transformation’ of America’s Environmental Role” 

Reflection:

In the article “Inside the ‘Radical Transformation’ of America’s Environmental Role,” journalists Maxine Joselow and David Gelles discuss the drastic change in the EPA as its administrator Lee Zeldin seeks to revoke a 2009 law that had built the foundation upon which the federal government could take initiatives against greenhouse gas pollution. As the journalists describe, critics of this change point to the impact it can have on the broader public while supporters emphasize on how climate change initiatives have, in their view, influenced economic approaches that limit (e.g.) transportation options. 

I don’t understand how it’s even possible to deny so much concrete science on a federal level. If so many findings up to now have pointed to how greenhouse gases endanger public health, aren’t governments supposed to lead their nation and their people in a direction that is most concretely justified? It’s so surprising that changes to the EPA can go this far. All that foundation, all that precedent, can be swept away by a single administration? There needs to be some kind of system where all of these justified decisions can’t be swept away like that. I know what I interpret as “justified decisions” is likely very different from what other people view as “justified decisions” but how can you deny so much science?