How Trump’s EPA Chief Is Dismantling Climate Regulation

Summary

Lawless Planet: “How Trump’s EPA Chief Is Dismantling Climate Regulation”
Podcast Host: Zach Goldbaum • Date: May 4, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Lawless Planet delves deeply into how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—long a cornerstone of America’s environmental health—has been radically reshaped under Donald Trump’s second term and, especially, under his surprising appointment of Lee Zeldin as EPA Administrator. Guided by interviews with investigative reporter Kevin Bogardis and two EPA whistleblowers, listeners are brought inside the agency’s upheaval: from mass firings and accusations of “waste, fraud, and abuse,” to sweeping regulatory rollbacks that echo the priorities of fossil fuel interests.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. History & Mission of the EPA

• Opening (00:00–03:42):
  • Zach Goldbaum recounts the legendary 1969 Cuyahoga River fire as a catalyst for the modern environmental movement, leading to the founding of the EPA in 1970 under President Nixon.
  • EPA’s legacy: Early victories like the Clean Air Act, DDT ban, phase-out of leaded gasoline, and the Superfund program—all rooted in bipartisan desires for clean air, water, and a healthier nation.
• Quote – Kevin Bogardis, reporter:
  • “There were environmental agencies before EPA... essentially what happened was, is they combined, I believe, about nine agencies into one.” (01:59)

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2. The Trump 2.0 Appointment & New Direction

• Zeldin’s Appointment (06:26–08:05):
  • Trump shocks political insiders by picking Lee Zeldin—a New York Republican more known for fierce loyalty than environmental expertise—as EPA Administrator.
  • Significance: Zeldin’s rapid, public appointment signals an agenda to “move fast and break things.”
• Quote – Kevin Bogardis:
  • “They had a plan and they had to execute, and they had to have someone who was intensely, fiercely loyal to the president... and Lee Zeldin has proved to be that guy.” (06:51)
  • “He has the kind of MAGA attack dog pose down... if there’s critical press stories, he’ll get on social media and push back right away.” (08:16)

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3. The Project Veritas Sting: Discrediting EPA Staff & Grants

• Undercover Operation (08:44–11:41):
  • Brent Efron, an EPA staffer, is covertly recorded on a date by a Project Veritas operative. His comments about “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” referring to rapidly distributing climate grants are weaponized against the agency.
• Press and Political Fallout:
  • The “gold bars” phrase is used to frame $20 billion in grants (from the Inflation Reduction Act) as wasteful.
• Quote – Brent Efron:
  • “It truly feels like we’re on the Titanic. We’re throwing like gold bars off the top...who are the gold bars going to? Nonprofits, states, tribes.” (10:15)

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4. The Rollback: Firing, Administrative Leave, and Gutting the Agency

• Mass Uncertainty and Layoffs (12:12–21:03):
  • Amelia Hertzberg (O&EJCR office) describes the frantic push to finish projects before the Trump administration shutters them, leading to abrupt suspension of DEI and environmental justice offices by executive order.
  • Staff are forced to choose between “enhanced standards of suitability” or planned resignation (the “fork in the road” email).
  • Amelia: “We were told to pack up our things... It was pretty abrupt.” (15:38)
• Sarah Sullivan (Tribal grants office) reports similar disruption. Her team must argue to keep their jobs and face shifting, bureaucratic obstacles making their work inefficient or impossible.
  • Quote – Sarah Sullivan:
    • “We were being given instruction of new layers of approval... making things less efficient. They were changing the process every couple of days...” (20:38)

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5. Rise of Dissent and Retaliation

• The Dissent Letter (21:31–23:50):
  • Hundreds of EPA staff sign a letter condemning Zeldin’s policies—including regulatory rollbacks and accusations of corruption. Main concerns: undermining public trust, ignoring science, targeting vulnerable communities, dissolving R&D, promoting a culture of fear.
  • Sarah and Amelia both sign the letter and are swiftly placed on administrative leave, along with 150 others.
  • Quote – Sarah Sullivan:
    • “It felt like such an outsized response to signing a public letter to be placed on leave.” (23:20)
• Retaliations escalate: Staff are fired for protected speech and barred from reapplying to civil service jobs.

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6. The Regulatory Rollback and Its Impact

• Regulatory & Scientific Retreat (26:52–29:51):
  • Endangerment Finding (February 2026)—the core scientific basis for greenhouse gas regulation—is repealed. Zeldin calls it “the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States, over $1.3 trillion.” (27:58)
  • Enforcement collapses: Under new “compliance first” memos, EPA staff report that enforcement of environmental law and settlement negotiations are stymied by leadership interference.
  • Kevin Bogardis:
    • “What it’s led to...was it shut down settlement negotiations with polluters. And it creates a very top down command structure.” (29:11)
  • DOJ enforcement actions fall over 80% (first term vs. second term).

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7. Who Benefits? Follow the Money

• Fossil Fuel and Chemical Industry Influence (30:00–31:38):
  • The administration is filled with current or former fossil fuel executives (43 by one count), and the Science Advisory Board now includes Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, and “forever chemical” producers.
  • Even major fossil fuel companies express concern over extreme deregulation’s unpredictable legal consequences.
  • The one EPA office hiring: chemical and pesticide approvals—facilitating industry profits.
  • Quote – Kevin Bogardis:
    • “They want a smaller, less powerful agency for sure.” (31:33)
    • “Who does that benefit? Well, it benefits the chemical industry.” (36:09)

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8. Human Toll and The Future

• Emotional and Professional Fallout (33:34–35:22):

  • Sarah Sullivan and Amelia Hertzberg share the heartbreak of being sidelined and blacklisted from public service. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of highly experienced staff are lost, with the EPA’s workforce shrinking to historic lows.
  • Quote – Sarah Sullivan:
    • “I care so much about the work that I was doing and the people I was working with... putting my name, my signature on a letter as a private citizen would mean that I would get fired.” (25:05)
  • Quote – Amelia Hertzberg (from Ireland):
    • “It doesn’t take long to break things right? But sometimes it takes a while to feel the effects...and it takes even longer to fix what you’ve broken.” (35:08)
  • Massive federal expense: $85 million spent in six months to pay EPA employees on forced administrative leave.

• Prospects for climate defense:

  • With the EPA in retreat, hope for environmental protection now rests with state and local governments.
  • Quote – Kevin Bogardis:
    • “If you’re a person who wants tough regulation to combat climate change, you know you’re going to have to look elsewhere than the federal government.” (36:52)

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• “It truly feels like we’re on the Titanic. We’re throwing like gold bars off the top...” – Brent Efron, about hurrying to deliver climate grants before the transition (10:15)
• “We will review every penny that has gone out the door. The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far left activist groups...are over.” – Lee Zeldin (16:07)
• “Just the amount of disdain that this administration has for public employees was astounding.” – Sarah Sullivan (26:31)
• “...driving a dagger through the heart of climate change religion and ushering in America’s golden age.” – Lee Zeldin, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (28:11)
• “There were internal postings of positions at the EPA that people who are placed on administrative leave were not allowed to apply for, which is illegal.” – Amelia Hertzberg (34:08)
• “It doesn’t take long to break things right? But sometimes it takes a while to feel the effects... and it takes even longer to fix what you’ve broken.” – Amelia Hertzberg (35:08)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–03:42 — EPA’s founding and legacy
• 06:11–08:16 — Trump’s surprising pick and Zeldin’s profile
• 10:15–12:47 — Project Veritas scandal and media fallout
• 13:14–15:38 — DEI, environmental justice office shutdown, and mass administrative leave
• 18:24–20:57 — Employees’ struggles under new bureaucracy and approval bottlenecks
• 21:31–23:30 — The internal EPA dissent letter and retaliation against whistleblowers
• 26:52–29:02 — Major regulatory reversals, collapse of enforcement
• 36:09–37:16 — The new focus on chemical approvals and prospects for climate action elsewhere

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Conclusion

This episode is a sobering, investigative look into how central government power can be wielded—often quietly and bureaucratically—to erase decades of environmental progress. It offers listeners candid accounts from inside the EPA, revealing the far-reaching implications for America’s air, water, public health, and core democratic values. In the words of those directly affected, the cost of deliberate sabotage may be felt for generations, with the planet’s fate now depending on alternative guardians.

Transcript

[Zach Goldbaum]

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Lawless Planet ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. In 1969, the Cuyahoga river in Ohio literally caught fire. The waterway was so polluted with oil slicks that all it took was a spark for the river to suddenly ignite. Flames leapt across the surface of the water, burning through the oily surface as black smoke rose downtown Cleveland. The fire was short lived, only lasting about a half an hour. But the aftershocks lasted far longer time and National Geographic ran features about the river's tendency to catch on fire. This was just one of at least 10 times that the polluted waterway had gone up in flames from oil slicks igniting. The pattern shocked people, and it came at a tipping point. A new wave of environmental awareness had begun earlier in the decade with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the landmark book from 1962 about the dangers of rampant pesticide use. By 1970, nobody wanted to go back to a world that looked like Dickensian London with little soot covered kids running around like the Artful Dodger. So citizens started calling for greater environmental reforms. On April 22, 1970, 20 million people demonstrated nationwide on what would become the first Earth Day.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

A unique day in American history is ending. A day set aside for a nationwide outpouring of mankind seeking its own survival.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Earth Day.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

A day dedicated to enlisting all the citizens of a bountiful country in the common cause of saving life from the deadly by products of that bounty.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That same year, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed under President Nixon. Yes, a Republican president created the epa.

[Kevin Bogardis]

There were environmental agencies before epa. There was one that dealt with air pollution, one that dealt with clean water. You know, and essentially what happened was, is they combined, I believe, about nine agencies into one.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's EE News reporter Kevin Bogardis. E&E is POLITICO's energy and environmental outlet. And Kevin's beat for over 12 years now has been federal agencies and their workforce with a focus on the epa. The EPA had major victories early on that made real, significant impacts on people's lives and health. It set air pollution limits under the landmark Clean Air Act. It banned a particularly dangerous pesticide called DDT. It phased out leaded gasoline, reducing airborne lead levels by 98%. And under the Superfund program created in 1980, it began cleaning up some of the nation's most contaminated hazardous waste sites. The vision and goals of the EPA have changed over the years, but regardless of who was in charge, the agency stuck to its mission to protect human health and the environment. It had always focused on its core principles of reducing pollution and ensuring that the American people had access to clean air, water and land. That is, until the current administration took over. For model originals. I'm zach goldbaum, and this is lawless planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.

[Sarah Sullivan]

When we're working with tribes, they talk about the next seven generations, and that's really what we're seeing here. I mean, the rollback, all of the things that are being undone, that's going to have impacts for at least the next seven generations.

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[Lee Zeldin]

Yeah.

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[Zach Goldbaum]

We know we talk a lot about Donald Trump on this podcast, but it's hard to avoid. He has a knack for inserting himself everywhere. But behind some of the more headline grabbing moments, like the war in Iran, the war in Venezuela, and the war with the Pope, there are other moves by this administration that are causing disruption, albeit much more subtly. One of them has been the quiet dismantling of the epa. Historically, the Environmental Protection Agency has been the government's most effective tool in protecting the planet and holding polluters accountable. And yet the current administration is actively dismantling it in an unprecedented way. For today's episode, we're getting an inside look at the chaos of the EPA's first year under Trump 2.0. We're talking to two EPA insiders who have felt the harsh ramifications of the new administration's agenda. Plus, we'll get more insight from EE News reporter Kevin Bogardes, who's covered the transition extensively. And to understand how this storied agency was turned upside down, I have to take you back to 2024, when Trump got reelected. For Kevin Bogardus, presidential transitions are like his Super Bowl. He prepares to cover them well in advance. So even Before Trump was reelected, Kevin thought he had a good sense of what he'd be writing about in the fall.

[Kevin Bogardis]

I was going to be like, here's who President Trump is thinking about for EPA administrator this time. And you talk to former EPA officials and you talk to lobbyists and environmentalists and activists and the whole thing.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Pretty much everyone thought Trump's EPA administrator would be Andrew Wheeler. From his first term, he was a former career EPA employee with a ton of experience, and he was seen as a sort of steady hand for the agency. Instead, Trump shocked everyone and went with a guy named Lee Zeldin. Not only that, he announced Zeldin as his pick just six days after the election.

[Kevin Bogardis]

I think we had our EPA administrator before we had our energy secretary and our Interior secretary. What that said and what is proven to be true is they were going to move fast and break things. They had a plan and they had to execute, and they had to have someone who was intensely, fiercely loyal to the president who was going to go forth and do it. And Lee Zeldin has proved to be that guy.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Zeldin is a former Republican congressman from New York. During his time in the House, he didn't seem to have much interest in environmental issues. The League of Conservation Voters gave him a score of 14%, meaning he voted against environmental regulations 86% of the time. This despite the fact that his district had some of the most polluted air and water in New York State. To be fair, he did oppose one of Trump's offshore drilling plans, and he voted in support of a bill to clean up Long Island Sound. So there's that.

[Kevin Bogardis]

He's pretty much had a reputation in Congress as somebody who is incredibly hardworking. His former staff told me they'd get emails from him at 1 or 2 in the morning. But he was also a great boss. He was also seen as incredibly loyal to the President.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That loyalty is important to Trump. And although Zeldin opposed a few of his policies, he also worked on Trump's team during the president's first impeachment trial and proved he was worth his salt.

[Kevin Bogardis]

He seems very well versed in the MAGA world. You know, he's very frequent on X. He has the kind of MAGA attack dog pose down where, I mean, if there's critical press stories, he'll get on social media and push back right away.

[Zach Goldbaum]

So as soon as the inauguration happened, Zeldin was ready to get to work. But before January rolled around, a controversial right wing outlet stepped into the fray.

[Brent Efron]

I do environmental, climate policy things. Really? Yeah.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It's November 2024, shortly after Trump's reelection, and 29 year old Brent Efron is on a date in Washington D.C. with a guy named Brady. Brent met him on Tinder, where Brady said he was a commercial real estate agent who just moved to the city. They messaged back and forth, commiserating about Trump's reelection, and then agreed to meet at a bar. So now Brent's tucked into a corner table, sipping a cocktail, trying to make conversation in this loud restaurant. But honestly, the date's just boring. All this guy Brady wants to talk about is work.

[Brent Efron]

It's amazing that stuff is here. I mean, because I didn't like federal government climate things. Well, I have been doing that, but I might change. But why?

[Zach Goldbaum]

As it happens, Brent works at the epa, and Brady's super interested. In particular, he keeps asking about all the money that Congress recently approved for the EPA's use in fighting climate change. Money that Trump has put promise to repeal once he gets into office. Now, mind you, Brent is drinking and he believes that he and Brady share the same politics. So given the fact that they can't seem to find anything else to talk about, Brent just keeps talking about his job. But what Brent doesn't know is that Brady is actually an operative from the right wing group Project Veritas, known for undercover stings. And Brent's every word is being captured on a hidden camera.

[Brent Efron]

It truly feels like we're on the Titanic. We're throwing like gold bars off the top. Who are the gold bars going to? Non profits states, tribes.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In case you couldn't hear that. Brent is saying it feels like they're throwing gold bars off the Titanic.

[Brent Efron]

We gave them the money because it was harder. If it was a government run program, they could take the money away if Trump won. And because it was a experience policy

[Zach Goldbaum]

against Trump winning, Brent's just shooting off his mouth, trying to impress the guy he's on a date with. After about an hour, they finish up and part ways. And Brent doesn't think much of it. He's certainly not interested in a second date. But then, in December 2024, Project Veritas releases the video of Brent. And conservatives and Trump officials alike latch onto one particular phrase, his comment about throwing gold bars off the Titanic. Now, just to be clear, there weren't any actual gold bars. It was just a turn of phrase that Brent used while sipping on what looked like an aperol spritz. The money, however, was real. It came mainly in the form of grants. About $20 billion had been set Aside under the Inflation Reduction act by the Biden administration, and the EPA was fully authorized to disburse those funds, it was

[Amelia Hertzberg]

a lot of money to get out the door.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Amelia Hertzberg was one of the EPA employees in D.C. working in the Office of Environmental justice and External Civil Rights on projects funded by these grants. To even apply to receive funds from Amelia's office, these projects had to be shovel ready, meaning they could hit the ground running within weeks of getting the money. They were all projects that made immediate impacts in their communities. Things like a new H VAC system for a school to lead testing for kids. And in hurricane prone Louisiana, a home weatherization project.

[Amelia Hertzberg]

And since this project probably wasn't going to continue under the Trump administration, it was, okay, let's complete the mission, right? This was something that the EPA had started, had invested a lot of tax dollars into just running the community Change grant application, right? So let's finish it so that those monies have actually done something for the American people versus oh, you didn't award the funds yet. We're gonna pull the plug and then you have a half built bridge.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But it was too late. When Trump took office, one of his first executive orders was ending diversity, Equity and inclusion, or DEI and environmental justice in government, which meant Amelia's entire office would be shut down. And when Lee Zeldin became EPA administrator in January 2025, he made it his mission to track down what he and Trump described as waste, fraud, and abuse.

[Lee Zeldin]

The EPA under my leadership, will respect the rule of law, advance cooperative federalism, and be good stewards of our tax dollars.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Zeldin addressing the nation after taking over the job. In one of his earliest messages to the public and EPA staff, Zeldin outlined five pillars of the Trump EPA's mission. One was still clean water, land and air. I mean, thank God, right? But in addition, the EPA would now focus on a list of new priorities that seem to run in direct opposition to that. First, the auto industry, energy dominance, permitting reform, and making the US the AI capital of the world. And in order to make room for these new pillars, he was going to get rid of all the waste, fraud and abuse that had plagued the agency throughout the Biden administration. That phrase, waste, fraud and abuse would be used over and over again by Zeldin and the Trump administration. Amelia Hertzberg took offense to that phrase. It felt like Zeldin was painting the entire agency as corrupt, all because one employee had run his mouth on a bad date.

[Amelia Hertzberg]

I was concerned about the legal ramifications if we take them at their word that there's waste, fraud and abuse that they're finding and cutting. Well, then there's an employee behind that waste, fraud, and abuse.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Amelia and her colleagues were unsure of their future, but the writing was on the wall. On January 28, 2025, she and more than 2 million other federal workers got that infamous fork in the road email from Elon Musk's Doge. You know, the one outlining Doge's plan to ensure that all federal employees were reliable, loyal and trustworthy. That same email gave employees a stay on under what they called enhanced standards of suitability and conduct, or opt in to a deferred resignation program. Despite the atmosphere of uncertainty, Amelia opted to stay. She didn't want to give up her job. She had wanted to work on environmental issues since she was in sixth grade. But then on February 6, she got an invitation for a zoom call along with 167 others. And on that call, Amelia's boss informed everyone that they were being put on administrative leave, effective immediately.

[Amelia Hertzberg]

And then she was gone. You know, she's not taking questions because legal hadn't written the answers to the questions right. So it was pretty abrupt.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Amelia and her colleagues weren't given an explanation for why they were being placed on leave. They were just told to pack up their things. Then a week later, Lee Zeldin made an announcement. They had found the so called gold bars.

[Lee Zeldin]

Shockingly, roughly 20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden epa. This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight. We will review every penny that has gone out the door. The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far left Atkinson groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Zeldin's claim that the gold bars were parked in an outside financial institution made the whole thing sound shady. But the money was just in an account at Citibank waiting to be distributed to nonprofits working on renewable energy projects as had been approved by Congress. Still, Zeldin seemed determined to find waste, fraud and abuse. And soon, Amelia and hundreds of other EPA employees would feel like they had no choice but to speak out. But for some, the consequences would be devastating. By April of 2025, it was becoming clear that the rampant waste, fraud and abuse at the EPA that Lee Zeldin and Doge been talking about wasn't exactly there. Zeldin's attempts to claw back some of the grants issued under Biden were being challenged in the courts. And according to one judge, so far the EPA had offered zero evidence to support Zeldin's claims. But Amelia Hertzberg and many other EPA employees were still on leave, fighting to get back to work. Generally, when federal employees are put on leave, it's for no more than 10 days. But this had now dragged on for weeks, and Amelia's future was still uncertain. She tried to meet with members of Congress, hoping to convince them that paying a bunch of EPA employees not to work was the opposite of government efficiency. But the meetings tended to be more confrontational than constructive. Amelia remembers one meeting in particular with a senator's staffer.

[Amelia Hertzberg]

A number of us in the group were feeling a bit raw, and this staffer got upset, and his voice was a little shaky because we were expressing anger, and that's not how you treat someone. It was just this surreal moment. You took our jobs. We're here because we don't have a job, and yet you're going to get upset if we raise our voice.

[Zach Goldbaum]

So Amelia remains stuck on the sidelines. She was still technically employed with the epa, but she couldn't do anything to help the office and the agency she loved so much. That is, until a letter started circulating across the country. In San Francisco, another EPA employee, Sarah Sullivan, was working out of the Bay Area office focused on administering general assistance grants to federally recognized tribes in California, Nevada, and Arizona. Her office had been subject to similar administrative leave policies as the rest of the epa. She says that about three fourths of her team had initially been put on leave, but they managed to come back to work after three weeks. To do so, they had to present a case to the administration as to why they should be allowed to come back to work.

[Sarah Sullivan]

We had to argue that this work was not environmental justice, which it's not right, it's distinct. It's government to government relationships with sovereign tribal nations. But no one should be just suddenly placed on administrative leave because their work has anything to do with environmental justice or dei.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It felt insulting that they even had to go through with it. Sarah had worked for the EPA for nearly a decade at that point. Before that, she'd gotten her master's in public and served in the Peace Corps. She was dedicated to protecting human health and the environment. Unfortunately, none of that seemed to matter anymore under Trump 2.0. And even after Sarah and her team were cleared to return to work, she hit new roadblocks.

[Sarah Sullivan]

We were being given instruction of New layers of approval that had to happen through DOGE that were making things less efficient. They were changing the process every couple of days, and we're trying to get hundreds of grants out the door. And they were like, oh, new process. Oh, you have to do it differently now.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It seemed to Sarah like the new administration was intent on making her job almost impossible to do.

[Sarah Sullivan]

I mean, there were executive orders coming out every single day, sometimes multiple a day. I mean, reading the rhetoric around them was really scary. I was managing a team that administered a grant program, and we were being required to sign off on these grants saying that they didn't conflict with any executive orders. When there were hundreds of executive orders coming out, it felt like. And no guidance.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Then one day in the summer of 2025, a letter came across Sarah's desk. She didn't know who drafted it, but it was circulating across the epa.

[Sarah Sullivan]

EPA employees join in solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration's policies, including those that undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Some of Sarah's fellow EPA employees had already signed the letter. It was straightforward and to the point, calling out the administration for their harmful deregulation strategy and for falsely accusing EPA employees of waste, fraud and abuse. The letter went on to list their five main concerns. That the EPA was undermining public trust, ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters, reversing the EPA's progress in the country's most vulnerable communities, dismantling necessary offices like research and development, and promoting a culture of fear. Five concerns for Zeldin's five pillars. After she finished reading the letter, Sarah felt strongly that she needed to add her name in support.

[Sarah Sullivan]

I thought it was important to stand up as myself, and I thought it was important to stand alongside other EPA employees to lend credibility to the letter. I had that firsthand experience on what was going on.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Sarah certainly wasn't the only one who signed the letter. Hundreds of others did, too, including Amelia Herzberg. A few days passed, and Sarah didn't think much more of it. But then, on July 3, right before the holiday weekend, her supervisor waved her into his office. When she closed the door, he gave her the bad news. She was being put on leave for signing the letter.

[Sarah Sullivan]

I was shocked because it felt like such a. An outsized response to signing a public letter to be placed on leave.

[Zach Goldbaum]

She wanted to argue the decision. She hadn't even signed it on her work computer. She'd done it on her personal device, speaking on her own behalf as a private citizen. But Sarah Wasn't given a chance to plead her case. She was told to pack up and leave immediately. But on her way out, she told everyone she saw what had just happened.

[Sarah Sullivan]

One of the things I told them as I was leaving was, you have my permission to tell people what's happening to me. So I wanted to make it very clear that you can tell people, you can tell partners, you can share what's happening.

[Zach Goldbaum]

When Sarah walked out the door that day, she hoped she would be back soon, but she had no idea. About 150 other staffers were told the same thing that day, that they were getting put on leave for signing the letter. Sarah's administrative leave kept getting extended every few weeks, and she was left in limbo. She was stressed, so she decided to take her mind off things. At the end of August, after being on leave for about two months, she went camping. She was sitting in a camp chair on a Friday afternoon when she got an email. It read, notice of proposed removal. It was a one line email with some attachments. That was it. Her entire career had ended just like that. Sarah said she was shocked that in that moment, she had the biggest emotional response she'd had so far. She'd known it was a possibility, but it still felt so surprising.

[Sarah Sullivan]

I care so much about the work that I was doing and the people I was working with, and it felt so surreal that putting my name, my signature on a letter as a private citizen would mean that I would get fired.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Sarah immediately tried contacting her family and her supervisors back at the EPA to let them know when she got back from her getaway. She submitted a rebuttal, but she had low hopes that it would do anything or that anyone would even read it. While Sarah fought her firing, Amelia Herzberg, who worked in the now defunct environmental justice office, was also officially let go in August. Supposedly, her signing of the dissent letter had nothing to do with it. And Sarah and Amelia were hardly the only ones who felt the hammer. In July, the EPA had shut down its Office of Research and Development, eliminating hundreds of jobs, mostly belonging to scientists who had been studying pollution, climate change, toxic chemicals, wildfires, and other important topics. Then that fall, more than 2,600 EPA employees left the agency as part of the deferred resignation program, which the administration encouraged, saying they should get paid while on leave and use that time to find a more beneficial job in the private sector. Here's Sarah again.

[Sarah Sullivan]

I'm quoting the website. The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector. Just the amount of disdain that this administration has for public employees was astounding.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The timing of these mass departures is really important. Not long after the workforce was gutted, so were long standing regulations. For example, at the beginning of 2026, the EPA declared the agency would no longer be assigning a dollar value to the lives saved when considering air pollution rules. A previous assessment by the EPA about cleaning up air pollution determined that the actions had saved 230,000 lives and billions of dollars. But now the agency said there was too much uncertainty in trying to determine the economic value of health benefits from pollution reduction. Then a month later, the Trump administration rolled back a fundamental climate change ruling from the Obama years called the Endangerment Finding. It was an important scientific standard that found that six greenhouse gases were threatening public health now and for generations to come. It was how the EPA was able to set standards for emissions of vehicles and power plants. Here's Lee Zeldin making the announcement with Trump by his side today, the single

[Lee Zeldin]

largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States, over $1.3 trillion. The elimination of the Endangerment finding is signed, sealed and delivered.

[Zach Goldbaum]

After Zeldin finally finished, Trump offered a review of the speech regularly. That was long. Zeldin went on to brag in a Wall Street Journal op ed that his EPA was, quote, driving a dagger through the heart of climate change religion and ushering in America's golden age. And wherever Zeldin can't rewrite the rules, he's simply not enforcing them. Here's E. News reporter Kevin Bogardes again.

[Kevin Bogardis]

EPA is like a multifunctional agency. It's not only a regulatory agency where employees write draft rules and they get public comment. There's also the science research function, which has really taken a huge hit too. But it's also an enforcement agency. It's a law enforcement agency.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But Kevin says that from his sources at the epa, he learned about a memo with new guidelines seemingly designed to undermine enforcement.

[Kevin Bogardis]

Eventually, I got a copy of this memo and it essentially espoused this compliance first approach on enforcement. And what it's led to in practicality, according to some EPA employees I talked to, was it shut down settlement negotiations with polluters. And it creates a very top down command structure. From any interaction you would have from somebody who's suspected of violating an environmental law, you're going to have to go get approval from top leadership. That's where you could get more and more political inference. You know, back off on this enforcement case. Don't go that far if you don't get approval.

[Zach Goldbaum]

There hasn't been any official report out by the Trump administration about enforcement of environmental crimes, but some environmental groups have looked into it. They're saying enforcement is way down. One group found the DOJ had only pursued 16 legal actions in the first year of Trump's second term. That's 81% lower than his first term. A lot of these changes are so egregious that they left people wondering who is really behind it all. All the upheaval at the EPA during Trump 2.0, the layoffs, the rapid deregulation. It is clearly not in service of the EPA's core mission, protecting human health and the environment, but it does serve one group, fossil fuel companies. This is the end result of decades of lobbying and political meddling. But it's more than that. Trump's energy secretary, Chris Wright, is the former CEO of a fracking company, and he's hardly alone. An analysis by the nonprofits Public Citizen and the Revolving door project found 43 Trump nominees and appointees with fossil fuel companies on their resumes. They're the ones making decisions that make it easier for the EPA to ignore air pollution and climate change. And just recently, Trump welcomed a who's who of chemical and oil Executives to the EPA's Science and Advisory Board, including execs from Dow Chemical, Exxon Mobil, and a producer of Forever Chemicals.

[Kevin Bogardis]

I think they want a smaller, less powerful agency for sure.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Kevin Bogardis again. According to Kevin, this move fast and break things ethos isn't always great for business, especially the smaller guys. While major corporations are generally reaping the biggest benefits, some businesses want certainty about regulations that they're not getting from the Trump administration.

[Kevin Bogardis]

Tossing the endangerment finding or taking apart the agency downsizing EPA is not really creating the regulatory certainty you want because we don't know who we're really dealing with. And, you know, it could be bad for business. There's some people who benefit from that, but it's really tough for people who are being regulated, who are being looked after by this agency, to know how to move and how to respond.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Even top oil and gas lobbying groups are concerned about the endangerment finding being overturned, although it's for selfish reasons. Without the endangerment finding, it could become more difficult for greenhouse gas emitters to defend themselves in court. For years, state, local and tribal governments have been suing big oil and gas companies for their role in climate change. But the corporations have always been able to argue that since the federal government regulates their emissions, state courts and laws have no jurisdiction over them. Without that shield, they could find themselves fighting an avalanche of new lawsuits that will be harder to dismiss. They're like a dog with a bone. For years, they've been saying this is what they wanted, and now that they're getting it, they suddenly don't know what to do. Sarah Sullivant is currently in a battle to get her job back. In December, she and five other former EPA workers filed a legal challenge, arguing that their firings were a violation of their protected First Amendment right to free speech. Despite the way she was treated, Sarah's still hoping that she can eventually return to the epa.

[Sarah Sullivan]

I think it comes back to why I wanted to work at EPA in the first place. It's the people. It's the mission. I, again, care so much about those people. And the work that I was doing and the relationships that I built there represent decades of experience and relationships that were just gone overnight.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Amelia Hertzberg, the other former EPA employee we talked to, shares a lot of the same sentiment. Like Sarah, despite everything she'd gone through, she still wanted to work at the epa, only to discover that she couldn't.

[Amelia Hertzberg]

There were internal postings of positions at the EPA that people who are placed on administrative leave were not allowed to apply for, which is illegal.

[Zach Goldbaum]

So not only could Amelia not get her job back, she couldn't apply for any new ones either.

[Amelia Hertzberg]

And so it felt like we were being blacklisted from government. I've actually filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint about that for the discrimination. That's unfair. I was trying to do something for my country, and it was very heartbreaking to have that taken away and to be treated as though I had done something wrong.

[Zach Goldbaum]

After she was fired, Amelia and her family packed up and left for a change of pace. Amelia's husband had a job that allowed him to easily relocate to Ireland. So that's what they decided to do.

[Amelia Hertzberg]

It doesn't take long to break things right? But sometimes it takes a while to feel the effects of having broken them, and it takes even longer to fix what you've broken.

[Zach Goldbaum]

At this point, it's hard to know exactly how many people have been fired, left, or are still in limbo at the EPA. By some estimates, it's as many as 1 in 3, which would leave the agency the smallest it's been since Gerald Ford was president. But we do know how much the federal government has spent paying employees not to work in the first six months. Over $85 million was spent to pay over 2,600 employees on administrative leave like Amelia was. Kevin Bogardis reports that there is some growth at the epa. One department in particular is actively hiring the chemicals office. They need more people so they can get through the backlog of chemicals and new pesticides that have been waiting for approval.

[Kevin Bogardis]

And who does that benefit? Well, it benefits the chemical advantage industry. If your product can get approved and permitted and put on market and sold, then you're going to make money.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Banning pesticides is part of the origin story of the epa. Now the agency is leading the charge behind pushing out more pesticides, a decision that is so counterintuitive that even the MAHA movement has taken issue with it. The EPA was born out of a concern for our environment, but with all these historic reversals, it seems like we're going back decades. What happens if to the future of the planet if the EPA stops doing its job as a protector of the environment?

[Kevin Bogardis]

If you're a person who wants tough regulation to combat climate change, you know you're going to have to look elsewhere than the federal government. I'm thinking of state, local agencies, you know, other institutions will have to step in and fill the void.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Follow Lawless Planet on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Lawless Planet ad free by joining Audible. On the next and final episode of Lawless Planet, the story of Tim DeChristopher, an activist who tried to stand in the way of oil and gas development and paid a heavy price. I was carrying a lot of anger at that time, but to me as a young person, it felt like this is a price that is being put on my generation and on all the generations coming after me. For today's episode, we relied heavily on the road of E. News, Grist, Public Citizen and the New York Times. Lawless Planet is produced by Audible. This episode was produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. It was written by Alex Burns. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producer for Audible is Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Lata Pandya. Our managing producer is Jake Kleinberg. Our producer is Lexi Perry. Sound designed by Kyle Randall. Music Music by Kenny Kusiak Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frison Sync Fact checking by Naomi Barr Our legal counsel is Shepard Mullen, Executive producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Navin, Head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Chiazza Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Originates, LLC. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.