The Grand Illusion
Over forty years ago, I was a political appointee at the Environmental Protection Agency during the first years of the Reagan Administration, with the position level of deputy assistant administrator for Legislation and Congressional Affairs.
At that time, in a similar fashion to what’s happening in the second Trump Administration, newly appointed cabinet officers – staunch Republicans all – were out to “get control” and “rein in the excesses” of government. And like now, most of them had no idea how the federal government worked or in the worst cases, how it didn’t. Some few of them had worked in state governments, and they thought that the federal government would be similar. Back then, it definitely wasn’t.
Unlike today, at that time, Congress was controlled by the Democrats, and they weren’t in the slightest pleased at the way the Administration was handling environmental matters, and various congressional committees began calling hearings. As the head of Congressional Affairs for EPA at the time, I counted up the hearings, and, as I recall, there were two different hearings every week for a good portion of 1982 – just for EPA-related matters. Virtually all those hearings were civil, yet acrimonious.
I suggested, very politely, to the White House that fighting with Congress over environmental matters was a bad idea and most likely a losing proposition. I was politely told that I had no idea what I was talking about, even though at that time, I’d already spent over ten years as a senior congressional staffer.
In the end, largely because of public opinion and congressional outrage, the EPA Administrator, the Deputy Administrator, and all the Assistant Administrators (the officials in charge of specific programs, such as Water, Air Pollution, Solid and Hazardous Waste, Research and Development, Legal Enforcement, etc.) were removed or effectively required to resign, as was the Secretary of Interior. I got off lightly, in that I was demoted to regulatory review. A year later, I managed to get a job with a Washington, D.C., consulting firm as an environmental and energy regulatory specialist.
The second Trump administration is unlike the first Reagan Administration in two major areas, in that, first, a number of key White House advisors do in fact know exactly how the Executive Branch works (although most of the lower-level MAGA appointees don’t) and, second, Republicans control the Congress. Whether these factors will delay or mute the impact of public outrage, I have no idea, but I do know that, in the past, when Presidents have greatly angered Congress, it often hasn’t gone well with them.
Will this time be different? You tell me.
