With efforts underway by Administrator Lee Zeldin to reform the EPA’s reputation for junk science, it is worthwhile to look back at how science became politicized within that agency. The story begins over a half century ago during the counterculture revolution of the late ‘60s when environmentalism became popular. Paul Ehrlich, who is often credited with being the founding guru of the environmental movement, became an overnight celebrity with his 1968 best-seller, The Population Bomb. In it, he warned about the consequences of population growth and predicted imminent famine and resource depletion for the world. Not since Thomas Malthus penned his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798 had there been such widespread interest in the topic. In fact, Ehrlich was a guest on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at least six times where he captured the imagination of audiences with his predictions of environmental doom and gloom. Over the ensuing decades, none of Ehrlich’s predictions came true, but by then the environmental movement had shifted its attention to other perceived offenses of mankind against nature.

A milestone for the environmental movement came when it attained a level of legitimacy and institutional mooring with the founding of the EPA in 1970. The agency came into being at a unique time in American history when hundreds of thousands of graduates were pouring off the university campuses as a result of the expansion of higher education. Some were keen to find ways to express the radicalism they absorbed there. They gravitated to the EPA and ushered in an era in which the protection of the environment became a quasi-religious crusade, fought with increasingly fanatical zeal. It was soon reflected in the mass of environmental regulation that has become a salient feature of American life. Moreover, they created a culture within the EPA that was hostile to business and willing to pervert the science to further their belligerent intent.

It was against this backdrop that the EPA in 2009, with a push from the Obama administration, embarked on a quest to extend its reach into every aspect of energy production and consumption with the adoption of the CO2 Endangerment Finding. The finding stated that CO2 is a danger to human health and welfare and as such should be regulated by the EPA. Prior to the finding, the EPA had only exerted pressure on electric power utilities to reduce emissions of particulate matter from smokestacks and for the most part the industry complied. With the finding, the EPA insisted that utilities comply with rules that would eliminate CO2 emissions by 2040. It set a requirement so onerous that utilities would have found it impossible to operate coal and natural gas thermal power plants beyond the 2040 deadline set by the agency. What made the ruling even more egregious was that the industry has no alternative for the dispatchable power from thermal plants that is needed to compensate for fluctuations in power output from renewables.

The Obama administration was confident that the EPA would succeed with this regulatory power grab because the agency by 2009 had a long history of producing junk science to bolster the claims of the environmental and climate movement. The corruption of the EPA is only one example of a government institution that has been influenced by environmental and climate activists masquerading as scientists. Administrator Zeldin’s reform agenda entails uprooting that influence and replacing the activist culture that has pervaded the EPA since its inception in 1970. This week, Zeldin announced that the EPA was beginning the process of rescinding the Endangerment Finding, and will reduce the scope of its mission and size of the agency. Zeldin has also started the arduous process to remove climate activists and replace them with competent scientists who can establish a new culture with scientific integrity.