The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving swiftly to reverse major regulatory policies of the former Obama administration. We sat down and talked recently with two veteran environmental lawyers to discuss what steps the agency headed by administrator Scott Pruitt is taking towards that goal; what business is seeking from the agency; which areas of the environment should be high priority for the agency and the nation, and other issues.
Janet McCabe served as deputy to former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy and acting assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation where she led efforts to implement Clean Air Act standards. During his 16 years in the environmental defense section of the U.S. Justice Department, Tom Lorenzen, now at Crowell & Moring, played a key role in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court affirmed the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and oversaw the government’s defense in major environmental cases in the federal appellate courts.
