Statement on the Victory of President-Elect Joe Biden

Environmental Integrity Project Executive Director Eric Schaeffer issued the following statement about the Electoral College victory of President-Elect Joe Biden:

One of the most important elections since the Civil War is finally over. It is clear that Joe Biden will be our next president – which is great news for the environment and public health – but also that our country remains deeply divided. 

The Biden Administration has promised that global warming will be one of the top four priorities for the new administration, which means a reversal of the Trump Administration’s attacks on climate science and its relentless promotion of fossil fuel.  Waving goodbye to President Trump should do wonders for morale at the once-proud U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has been forced to spend the last four years drilling loopholes in the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, protecting polluters instead of the public. 

Immediately after taking office, the Biden Administration must begin the hard work of repairing federal agencies crippled by four years of political manipulation and mismanagement. That must include rebuilding EPA, which has lost many of its best and brightest and is now smaller than it was in President Reagan’s last year in office. 

Above all, the Biden Administrator should honor these words from the Mr. Bill Ruckelshaus, a lifelong Republican who was EPA’s first administrator under President Nixon and then re-appointed by President Reagan to resurrect the agency after the disastrous mismanagement of his predecessor.  Mr. Ruckelshaus said: “The EPA should have no natural constituency but the public whose health it is mandated to protect.”