President Trump is stocking the Environmental Protection Agency with officials who have served as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries, many of whom worked in his first administration to weaken climate and pollution protections.
Lee Zeldin, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the E.P.A., has little experience with environmental policy. He will be expected to hit the ground running, though, to fulfill Mr. Trump’s fire hose of orders directing the agency to cut regulations.
Mr. Zeldin already has marshaled more than a dozen deputies and senior advisers. The quick appointments are in contrast to Mr. Trump’s first term, when many Republicans hesitated to join the administration and internal squabbling delayed the selection of the deputy administrator as well as the chief air pollution regulator for nearly a year.
The top appointees, who have already moved into their offices, include David Fotouhi, Mr. Zeldin’s second-in-command, a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos; Alex Dominguez, a former oil lobbyist who will work on automobile emissions; and Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist for both the oil and chemical industries who is expected to be the top air pollution regulator.
The division of E.P.A. that evaluates the safety of new chemicals now includes Nancy Beck, a longtime chemical-industry lobbyist, and Lynn Ann Dekleva, who has been working for the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. Both are veterans of the first Trump term.
“It’s alarming to see former industry lobbyists and attorneys who, until recently, were paid by their clients to weaken pollution standards, nominated to high-ranking positions at E.P.A. where they will have the power to undermine regulations meant to protect the public from these same industries,” said Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group.
Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said the agency was “putting together a leadership team composed of some of the brightest experts and legal minds” and all would “uphold E.P.A.’s mission to protect human health and the environment.”
“President Trump advanced conservation and environmental stewardship in his first term and the E.P.A. will continue this legacy in his second term,” she said.
The speed in assembling the E.P.A. team isn’t the only difference between the first and second Trump terms. Regulatory attorneys say the new team has more experience. Mr. Trump’s first E.P.A. had a reputation for being sloppy, leading to dozens of cases being overturned or thrown out by the courts.
“This group is arriving with more expertise in deploying the machinery of the agency, including to unravel regulations from the prior administration,” said Kyle Danish, a partner at Van Ness Feldman, a Washington law firm that advises energy clients. “They all look like they graduated one level from what they did in the first Trump administration.”
Mr. Zeldin’s deputy, the Harvard-educated lawyer David Fotouhi, left corporate practice in 2017 to join the E.P.A. during the first Trump administration. He rose to acting general counsel and became a central figure in Mr. Trump’s efforts to weaken or delete dozens of regulations that were designed to protect air and water from pollution.
Mr. Fotouhi has a long record of representing polluters against the E.P.A. and other regulatory agencies. Last year, he challenged the E.P.A.’s ban of asbestos, arguing on behalf of automakers that the E.P.A. had failed to demonstrate that asbestos presented an unreasonable risk of injury. Under Mr. Biden, the United States joined 55 other countries that have banned asbestos, which is known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and laryngeal cancer.
Mr. Fotouhi has defended industrial plants accused by the E.P.A. of violating the Clean Air Act and toxic-chemicals rules, and helped corporations repel proposed regulations. He represented a major operator of coal-burning power plants challenging rules to prevent toxic coal ash from contaminating groundwater.
And in 2021, he represented a paper-mill company in a lawsuit brought by Maine landowners whose land was contaminated with “forever chemicals,” also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, linked to cancer and other diseases.
“It was the typical corporate defense,” said Elizabeth Bailey, an environmental attorney who represented the plaintiffs. “Which is: You can’t prove that it’s us.”
Mr. Dominguez, the former oil lobbyist, is now a deputy assistant administrator who will serve as a point person for one of Mr. Trump’s highest priorities, canceling the largest climate regulation in history, designed by the Biden administration to cut the automobile pollution that is heating the planet. Under that rule, more than half the new passenger vehicles sold in the United States would have to be zero emissions by 2032.
Attempts during by the first Trump administration to weaken tailpipe pollution limits were mired in legal and logistical errors and delays. Mr. Dominguez, a veteran of that effort, is expected to be better prepared this time.
Between Trump administrations, Mr. Dominguez worked for the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and gas industry. The group delivered a detailed wish list to Mr. Trump, topped by the rollback of the tailpipe pollution rules. Oil companies oppose the rules because the transition to electric vehicles would hurt demand for gasoline.
Abigale Tardif is returning to the E.P.A. air pollution office after serving there in the first Trump administration. She has worked as a policy analyst for Americans for Prosperity, part of the conservative network of groups founded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. She has also lobbied for Marathon Petroleum Corporation and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a major industry lobbying group.
Last summer, that group launched what it described as a “seven figure” campaign of advertising, phone calls and text messages against the tailpipe rule, which it falsely called “Biden’s E.P.A. car ban.”
Dr. Beck, a former senior director with the American Chemistry Council, is now a senior E.P.A. adviser on chemical safety and pollution. She led a wide-ranging pushback against chemical regulations during the first Trump administration, as well as what a subsequent investigation described as political interference in agency science and policymaking.
Dr. Beck rewrote rules that made it harder to track the health consequences of a “forever chemical” linked to cancer, and therefore to regulate it. She also helped soften limits on asbestos and methylene chloride, a harmful chemical found in paint thinners.
Dr. Dekleva, also a former senior figure at the chemical industry trade group and another veteran of the first Trump term, is returning to the E.P.A. to regulate new chemicals. She worked for more than three decades at DuPont, the chemicals giant. Recent reports by the E.P.A.’s Office of Inspector General said that, under Dr. Dekleva, employees were pushed to approve new chemicals and were retaliated against if they raised concerns.
Dr. Beck and Dr. Dekleva did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Szabo was named as a senior adviser to the administrator but he is expected to become the agency’s top air pollution regulator, according to three people with knowledge of the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. He has lobbied on behalf of the American Chemistry Council, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers association and the American Petroleum Institute, records show.
Mr. Szabo also is a government veteran, having worked in the White House Office of Management and Budget and as a senior counsel for the White House Council on Environmental Quality during Mr. Trump’s first term.
“They understand the policies well, they understand the agency well, which puts them far ahead of where they were eight years ago,” said Dimitri Karakitsos, a Republican energy and chemicals lobbyist.
