The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is certain to change under the new administration of President Donald Trump, but just how much remains to be seen.
Speaking on WBUR's On Point, former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said the Republican party has been at the forefront of several key environmental moments in American history.
"Richard Nixon started the EPA. George H. Bush started and passed -- the 1990 -- signed the Clean Air Act amendments," McCarthy said. "Some of the strongest environmental efforts have been undertaken under Republican administrations. I, myself, have worked for five Republican governors and one Democrat," McCarthy said. "It just depends on whether you focus on what the agency actually does rather than the rhetoric you hear."
Before serving in the Obama administration, McCarthy was head of Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection. She was appointed by Governor M. Jodi Rell, a Republican.
Speaking with WBUR's Tom Ashbrook, McCarthy said there's a lot to be concerned about in the Trump administration. The Clean Power Plan remains hung up in the courts, and she worries other environmental policies of the Obama administration could be undermined or overturned.
"I think there's certainly going to be an attempt to do that," McCarthy said. "You have to have active citizenry right now. You have to demand that the science be paid attention to -- that the laws be implemented as they've been designed and that the agency scientists and career staff gets listened to," she said. "Right now, this administration is calling itself the 'landing team' and the 'beachhead' team. I am not Normandy. We're not storming an enemy here. They have to shift from rhetoric to actually governing."
On Wednesday, Democrats boycotted a committee hearing for Trump's pick to head up the EPA -- Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.
Unlike President Trump, Pruitt has stopped short of questioning the origins of climate change, but in recent congressional testimony, did question the role human activity plays in a warming planet.
