In a statement last month on its first 100 days under President Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency celebrated 100 achievements.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency had taken “significant actions” to protect public health and the environment while working “to Power the Great American Comeback.” The agency said it was also working to fulfill Trump’s promises to revitalize the auto industry, “restore the rule of law,” and give decision-making power back to the states.

The EPA, the bosses were claiming, was succeeding in its mission of protecting human health and the environment.

In practice, the agency has done the opposite, several EPA staffers told The Intercept.

Environmental advocates and experts have criticized the administration for an “all-out assault” on the environment. Now, EPA staffers are speaking out in the wake of staff cuts and the gutting of a spate of programs to remove lead from drinking water, support rural wastewater treatment, and address racial disparities in environmental pollution.

“Americans are going to be less healthy. And frankly the EPA is going to be less efficient.”

“The mission of the EPA has been shifted,” said Amelia Hertzberg, an environmental protection specialist at the EPA.

“Americans are going to be less healthy. And frankly the EPA is going to be less efficient,” Hertzberg said. “If you’re less efficient, you’re wasting money. It’s working at cross-purposes with their stated goals.”

An EPA spokesperson disputed staffers’ characterization of its efforts to cut staff and weaken programs.

“At EPA, we are doing our part to Power the Great American Comeback, and we are proud of our work to advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment every day since January 20,” EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said in a statement to The Intercept.

“Not Our Mission”

Under Zeldin’s leadership, the EPA announced a set of new core priorities that includes making the U.S. the artificial intelligence capital of the world and revitalizing the auto industry.

Staffers are concerned that instead of making communities healthier, under Trump the agency is now focused on serving industry, said Ellie Hagen, an environmental scientist at the EPA’s Environmental Justice, Community Health, and Environmental Review division.

It’s not clear how the EPA is supposed to serve those goals, said Hagen said, whose job is being terminated in July and was speaking on behalf of her local union, American Federation of Government Employees Local 704.

“They’re coming out with these pillars of serving the auto industry and bringing back auto industry jobs.”

“A lot of us are really confused about........

© The Intercept