Former top environmental officials—two from Democratic administrations, two from Republican ones—said that the first 100 days of President Donald Trump's second term in office have caused irreversible harm to the country's hard-won environmental protections and their ability to stave off the worst effects of climate change.
"My sense is that the first 100 days have created a situation of irreparable damage," former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly told Newsweek. Reilly, who led the EPA under Republican President George H.W. Bush and served in the administration of Republican President Richard Nixon at the time of the EPA's creation, said he worried that Trump's deep cuts to environmental agencies leave them unable to fulfill their missions. "He has so impaired the capacity of several agencies to run on all cylinders that he will be dealing with a dysfunctional set of agencies."
Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator during Republican President George W. Bush's first term in office, said Trump has been "very systematic in dismantling" the agency.
"They've done more damage to the environment in this 100 days than they managed to do in the whole first term," Whitman told Newsweek. She said she was especially concerned that in addition to attempting to roll back regulations, the administration has signaled to polluting industries that it will not fully enforce existing rules. "They're just wholesale saying, 'We're not going to enforce this anymore,' and without any justification for why that is in the public's best interest."
Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator under Democratic President Barack Obama, said she was "heartbroken" by what is happening at her former agency. She said the current administration has purposefully strayed from the EPA's intent in order to advance the objectives of the oil, gas and coal industries, which donated heavily to Trump's election campaign.
"It's horrific that EPA's mission is no longer about protecting the environment; it's about 'unleashing American energy,' which of course we all know just means moving forward with fossil fuels," McCarthy said in a press briefing last week.
An EPA spokesperson declined to directly respond to the criticism from former agency heads and instead sent Newsweek a brief statement listing the administration's accomplishments. Those include assisting with emergency response to wildfires in Los Angeles and flooding in the Southeast, making progress on cleanup of some Superfund toxic waste sites and expanding the detection of PFAS water contamination.
"The Trump administration's first 100 days have been historic," the spokesperson wrote via email. "At EPA, we are doing our part to power the great American comeback, and we are proud of our work to advance the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment every day since January 20th."
However, the hallmark of Trump's EPA administrator, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, has been a relentless push to undo Biden-era programs on climate action and environmental justice and to roll back regulations.
The environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council said last week it had identified a "destructive action or proposal" for every day of the Trump administration's first three months.
In a single afternoon last month, Zeldin unleashed a blitz of announcements to reconsider 31 regulations dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, toxic air pollution, clean water protections and waste from fossil fuel extraction. Zeldin called it the biggest deregulation action in U.S. history and said he was driving a "dagger through the heart" of climate regulations.
In an unprecedented move that one top legal scholar called "strikingly illegal," Zeldin arranged to freeze the bank accounts used by several climate finance groups that had been awarded billions of dollars already approved by Congress. Zeldin has slashed hundreds of positions at the agency, and the White House has said it is aiming for a 60 percent to 65 percent reduction to the EPA workforce.
The administration has also sharply cut back staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, a leading climate science agency that also oversees the National Weather Service and management of the nation's marine fisheries.
"With no apparent objective, other than ruining lives and creating chaos, this administration has undone decades of progress in our nation's ability to predict weather, manage fisheries and ensure the safety of our citizens and their property," former NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, who led the agency under Democratic President Joe Biden, told Newsweek via email.
In March, NOAA announced it would no longer host monthly briefings on global climate data. The EPA and other agencies, including the departments of Energy, Agriculture and Transportation, have eliminated climate information from official agency websites.
The administration is seeking to expand the production of fossil fuels on public land while curtailing clean energy development, especially offshore wind projects. As in his first term in office, Trump announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement, which reaches a critical moment for national emissions reductions targets as the agreement turns 10 this year.
Former EPA Administrator McCarthy, who also served as Biden's national climate advisor, is now managing co-chair of a group called America Is All In, which includes state, city, nonprofit and business leaders who remain committed to the Paris Agreement goals.
McCarthy said the number of companies and communities joining the Paris pledges is growing as the clean energy economy continues to produce jobs and value in spite of the political headwinds.
"What is happening now in our country is not the end of our story, not by a long shot," McCarthy said.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is a co-chair of the group with McCarthy. Pritzker has emerged as one of the more outspoken Democratic critics of the Trump administration, and he listed ways his state was doubling down on climate action. Pritzker also lashed out at the administration and cuts directed by its Department of Government Efficiency.
"Elon Musk and his DOGE bros are giving corporations a free pass to pollute our air and our water, while gutting funding for clean energy," Pritzker said in a press briefing last week. "It's clear that there is no short- or long-term thinking—and maybe no thinking at all—going on at the White House."
Former EPA leader Reilly said he thinks the chaotic and rapid cuts the administration is making to the agency are intended to leave it permanently damaged despite what a court might eventually rule on restoring people and programs.
Reilly also had a warning for the president. He said Trump's approach could come to haunt him when he finds that the government he won control of no longer has the capacity to act.
A student of history, Reilly said he found a suitable analogy in the story of Alexander the Great's action after he won the mighty Persian city of Persepolis.
"He then decided to destroy the palace, showing his dominance, showing his superiority and waking up regretful the next morning and realizing that the most beautiful palace in civilization, which he had won in battle, he destroyed," Reilly said. "There's something in that that rings true to me about Trump, destroying these vital services, and, yet, it's their government now, it's their responsibility to make these laws work."
