Overview:
- A recent poll by the Environmental Protection Network reveals that most Trump voters oppose weakening the EPA, as local advocates warn of impacts on Michigan's environmental programs. - The poll also shows increased support for the agency since 2017.
- Despite broad backing for environmental action and Trump's promises to protect air and water quality, former EPA staffers caution that the President-elect aims to roll back regulations, avoid defending established rules from corporate lawsuits, and reduce the agency's size.
- This could lead to weaker environmental protections and declining support for Michigan's environmental programs.
A poll released Tuesday found a majority of those who voted for President-elect Donald Trump oppose efforts to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency, as local advocates warn that EPA cuts could impact Michigan environmental programs.
The poll, which also found that support from all voters for the agency has increased since 2017, was commissioned by the Environmental Protection Network, a group founded by former EPA scientists and officials during the first Trump administration to support environmental agencies and communities impacted by environmental injustice.
“These numbers were frankly astounding to me,” said Matt George, head of research for the communications firm Seven Letter, which performed the poll. However, he noted that there has historically been strong bipartisan support for the EPA.
Sean McBrearty, Michigan director for the nonprofit Clean Water Action, told Planet Detroit the poll results were similar to other surveys that found overwhelming bipartisan support in Michigan for protecting the Great Lakes and reinstating ‘polluter pay’ legislation to hold businesses accountable for cleaning up pollution.
“Holding corporations accountable was actually one of the arguments that Republicans used in their State House campaigns,” he said.
Despite broad support for environmental action and Trump’s promises to protect air and water quality, former EPA staffers on a Tuesday press call said the President-elect will seek to roll back regulations, decline to defend established rules from corporate lawsuits and find ways to shrink the agency. The result could be weaker environmental protections and declining support for Michigan’s environmental programs.
“Trump tried to dismantle EPA in the past, and he seems dead set on trying again,” said Michelle Roos, executive director for EPN.
Roos said the poll confirms that Trump does not have a mandate to weaken the EPA.
Trump won a majority of electoral votes in this year’s election but secured less than 50% of the popular vote.
MORE TRUMP, ENVIRONMENT AND DEMOCRACY COVERAGE
Analysis: What Trump could mean for democracy and the environment
Trump’s comeback victory, after reshaping his party and national politics, looks a lot like Andrew Jackson’s in 1828
Could Biden’s nuclear energy push be Trump’s climate compromise?
He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution
The poll, conducted between Nov. 7 and 13, included responses from 1,000 voters. It found that 76% of Trump voters and 86% of all voters wanted to either strengthen the EPA or protect it at its current level, while similar numbers want Congress to protect or increase EPA funding.
Sixty-four percent of Trump voters (and 88% of all voters) expressed concern that Trump would hand EPA leadership to a director who will “put the interests of polluting corporations ahead of protecting clean water, clean air, and public health.”
Trump has picked former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA. Zeldin has questioned whether climate change is an urgent problem and voted to expand oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
He’s widely seen as someone who will be loyal to Trump’s agenda of shrinking the EPA and eliminating environmental protections.
Why voter support for EPA budget may not reign in Trump’s agenda
Former EPA officials on the Tuesday call said widespread support for the agency may not influence the incoming administration, which has discussed using a ‘schedule F’ order to fire as many as 50,000 federal employees.
Jeremy Symons, senior advisor for EPN and former climate policy advisor for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for radically restructuring the executive branch is a “novel plan” for dismantling the EPA and driving staff out.
Although Republicans will gain control of the U.S. House and Senate next year, they could still resist the Trump administration’s efforts to slash EPA’s budget. However, Project 2025’s chapter on the EPA proposes relocating regional offices “so that they are more accessible to the areas they serve and deliver cost savings to the American people,” which could drive out EPA workers.
When the Trump administration moved the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters from Washington D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado, in 2020, it led to an exodus of workers in leadership positions.
Russel Vought, former director of the Office of Management and Budget who worked on Project 2025, previously described plans to inflict “trauma” on EPA employees.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
Trump is once again considering Vought for leadership of the White House budget office.
The Trump administration could also decline to defend pending federal drinking water standards for toxic PFAS chemicals from lawsuits by utilities and business interests.
Recently released EPA data shows over 143 million Americans are exposed to PFAS in drinking water, which has been detected in drinking water systems across Metro Detroit.
If the Trump administration proposes different PFAS regulations, the 2029 deadline for complying with the rules will automatically be pushed back by a decade, according to Elizabeth Southerland, former director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA’s Office of Water.
Michigan could see funding dry up for environmental programs
If Congress were to approve EPA budget cuts, it could have a dramatic impact on Michigan. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy received roughly 35% of its funding from the EPA in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
Bentley Johnson, federal government affairs director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, said the president-elect and Republican lawmakers are likely to cut programs that largely serve low-income people and communities of color, such as Biden’s Justice 40 Initiative, which directs climate and infrastructure funding to historically disadvantaged communities.
Johnson said this would force EGLE and the state to make difficult decisions about what programs to support.
Budget cuts and a loss of staff at EPA could also drain support for environmental enforcement and cleaning up contaminated sites, Johnson said. EPA administers the Superfund program, which is involved in the cleanup of over 60 highly contaminated sites in Michigan. But the agency also provides support for the cleanup of other sites that aren’t on the list.
“When the EPA is there, we’ve heard from impacted residents that it does make a difference,” Johnson said.
In 2017, the Trump administration sought to reduce the agency’s budget by a third, although Congress resisted these cuts. If Trump finds more success securing cuts in his coming term, it would add to a long decline in agency funding.
According to an EPN report, the EPA’s inflation-adjusted spending decreased by 50% between 1980 and 2019, while the U.S. population increased by 44%.
McBrearty stressed the need for grassroots opposition to the budget cuts and deregulation that political donors often support. He said it was important to support environmental groups and organizations like labor unions, which have previously worked collectively to push for environmental protections and workplace safety.
“We need to take every step we can to build a system that makes lawmakers accountable to the people, not to the corporations funding their campaigns,” he said.