The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has new marching orders under President Trump.
His appointee to lead the agency, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, has promised to “unleash American greatness” by pulling back regulations and slashing its annual budget by at least 65 percent. Zeldin claims he can hit the target through spending and staff cuts, which led EPA workers to rally in Denver to protect their jobs last month.
Cyrus Western is now in charge of carrying out that vision in the Mountain West. After serving three terms in the Wyoming state House, Western is now the administrator of EPA Region 8, which is headquartered in Denver and oversees Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and 28 tribal nations.
In an interview with CPR News, Western said he’s focused on balancing environmental protection with affordability and jobs. To accomplish the goal, he said he’ll enforce laws as written rather than pursue aggressive regulations on private industry.
“The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Drinking Water Act — these are on the books, and we absolutely intend to ensure that we are following the law and that we have the staff and resources necessary to fulfill our obligations and requirements,” Western said at EPA Region 8 headquarters in downtown Denver.
It’s unclear, however, whether EPA Region 8 employees can expect deep staff cuts. During the interview recorded Wednesday, Western initially said his staff should plan for layoffs. He later clarified his comments after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin visited Colorado on Saturday, telling reporters the agency hasn’t decided to shrink its workforce. “My answer was not meant to suggest any specific decisions have been made within Region 8 or the EPA because those decisions have not yet been made,” Western said.
The discussion also explored Western’s views on climate change, air quality and environmental justice. The excerpts below have been edited for length and clarity.
On balancing regulations and affordability:
“We can all agree pollution is bad. The less CO2 we put in the atmosphere, the better. That being said — and this is something that I think Administrator Zeldin is getting at — is what about the average folks in affordability? I would contend that one of the greatest achievements of modern society is to deliver really reliable, affordable power.
If you look at what's happened over the last 15, 20 years or so, there's been a ton of clean energy that's come online, windmills, solar panels. That's all great. There's no question wind power is good, and solar power is good. We absolutely want that. But if you also look at a different set of data during that time, reliability has gone down, affordability has gone down. I think that is a conversation that hasn't really happened very much in a really public way.”
On wind and solar power:
“There's no doubt that they are generating electricity, right? But are they generating the amount of electricity at a reasonable price at the time it's needed? The reality is that they're not. That is what makes coal, hydro, nuclear and gas so good at generating base power. As long as everything's constructed properly and you're not in an under-constrained market or any of that kind of stuff, you can say this facility can generate this amount of electrons at a given time to meet this demand.”
On environmental justice:
“If we are talking about ensuring that folks from socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods have clean water, they have access to clean air, if there is some kind of chemical spill? That absolutely needs to be addressed. There is no question.
“If this is a conversation about taking federal taxpayer dollars and directing them to organizations that turn right around and tell Congress that they need to spend more money on environmental justice, that's not going to fly.”
