WASHINGTON _ Nearly 600 former Environmental Protection Agency officials have called for an investigation into the Trump administration in response to threats from the EPA targeting California.
In a letter to the House committees on Oversight and Government Reform and Energy and Commerce, 593 signatories asked for a probe to determine whether EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler's "recent actions in California were intended as retaliation for the state's failure to support President Trump's political agenda."
The former officials pointed to a Sept. 24 notice from Wheeler to California's chief air quality regulator that accused the state of having failed for decades to take required steps under the Clean Air Act, specifically allowing a backlog of more than 130 inactive smog-reduction plans to accumulate. The notice threatened to cut federal transportation funding to the state as punishment for not submitting timely pollution-control plans.
"California has the worst air quality in the United States," wrote Wheeler, adding that 82 areas within California aren't meeting federal air quality standards.
The former officials pushed back in their letter and alleged that Ohio, New York, Iowa, Missouri, Texas and Indiana have had more pollution sources in "significant" noncompliance with environmental laws over the last three years than California.
"EPA's authority should be used to protect human health and the environment and never to retaliate against perceived political foes. We urge your Committee to determine whether Mr. Wheeler's letters of September 24 and 26 threatening to withhold grant funds and increase EPA oversight were motivated by improper partisan concerns."
The group that organized the letter, the Environmental Integrity Project, sent a second letter to Wheeler on Thursday regarding the Trump administration's Sept. 26 warning to California officials that the state is "failing" to meet federal water quality standards.
"We ask that you give equally close scrutiny to Clean Water Act violations at large municipal or industrial wastewater treatment plants in other states," according to the letter, which was written by the organization's director and a former EPA water official.
