‘It’s a choice between a firefighter and a climate arsonist’: What the EPA might look like under Trump 2.0

The Biden administration has pushed climate policy forward—but that could see a quick reversal if Trump wins the November election.

The cover of Protecting the Environment: A Half Century of Progress contains a split photo, the left half showcasing the horrific smog of 1960s Los Angeles, the right showing the Cuyahoga River in 1952, polluted and on fire. This retrospective document, put together by the EPA Alumni Association in 2020, goes on to note that “many Americans today . . . were not yet born when the EPA was created . . . or they were too young to appreciate how air and water quality were deteriorating until governments, private companies, and individual citizens stepped up to take action.”