WASHINGTON — No such thing. That was the verdict delivered by the security guard inside the Ronald Reagan Building on the question of whether there existed a museum of the Environmental Protection Agency and, more to the point, whether that museum was somewhere within this airy warren of federal offices in downtown Washington. In fact, she appeared to regard the question as downright insane.
Indeed, the repurposed office space next to the EPA’s credit union — which retains its gray carpeting, lime-colored walls and drop ceiling — is less museum than time machine, taking the visitor back to Nov. 8, 2016. That was before Donald Trump was elected president, before Trump’s EPA chief Scott Pruitt declared that “the war on coal is over.”
Trump, who once mused that global warming is a Chinese hoax, has continued to evince skepticism about the causes of rising temperatures, even as scientists warn of impending catastrophe. Wheeler has conceded that climate change is “an important issue,” but it has not been among his priorities. It is remarkable that any of this still exists, considering how assiduously the Trump administration has moved to scrub the agency of its legacy. Mentions of climate change were removed from the EPA website in the months after Trump took office. The little museum, with no celebrities or billionaires on its board of directors, was supposed to meet the same fate.
He has, so far. “We are not aware of any plans to add new displays to the exhibit,” an EPA official involved in the museum’s operations said. Another panel discusses the Toxic Substances Control Act, the 2016 legislation that sought to impose some regulatory order on the 80,000 chemicals used in everyday life. And while that law remains in place, the EPA’s own enforcement has waned in the Trump administration.
HARSH OPINION/ As Of January, 2017 With The Arrival Of The US 'Current Administration' The Enviromental Protection Agency, The EPA Became The Enviromental Polluting Agency. ^TJT CER