Scott Mason IV will lead the area of the Environmental Protection Bureau, including some hotspots for petroleum and gas production and industrial pollution, including Louisiana’s cancer alleys, the Gulf Coast, and the Perminator.
Mason advised the authors of the EPA chapter at Project 2025, the blueprint of the Conservative Heritage Foundation to sync with the industrial priorities and reconstruct the institution.
Jennah Durant, a six -spokesman, said, “local manager Mason believes that all Americans should be able to access clean air, land and water. “He meets the mission to protect the human health and the environment of Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma and 66 tribal countries.”
But for the environmentalists, his appointment raises alarms on the environmental definition efforts of the region. Mason served as Vice Minister of Energy Oklahoma, his hometown. Most of his career was in Oklahoma politics and higher education. He is a member of the Cherokee country.
Durant did not respond directly to whether Mason would try to implement the PrOJECT 2025 recommendations.
Trump’s ‘efficiency’ promotion can destroy EPA. What does that mean to you?
Local offices change hands
Many environmental regulations are delegated to the state, but the EPA regional office manages the program according to the federal jurisdiction. Ten local offices are also closely involved in monitoring new permit programs delivered to state regulators.
According to the BIDEN administration, the regional office actively played a role in deploying funds in inflation and other federal programs, and low -income areas and color communities that have been unbalanced due to climate change and pollution by using environmental definition as priority. It was targeted for funds for.
Jen Duggan, the executive director of the non -profit Watchdog Environmental Integrity Project, said the local office is “a place where the rubber meets the road.”
“Local administrators are responsible for implementing EPA programs and providing important supervision of national environmental institutions. “Without a strong leadership in this role, people are more likely to be exposed to dangerous air and water pollution.”
In region 6, Mason replaces Eartheea NANCE, a civil engineer and a former professor of Southern Texas, with decades of experience in restoring disasters. NANCE uses her role to reflect light on the continuous contamination of the area and encourage the climate and environmental definition program of the BIDEN administration.
She crossed a vast area in Dallas Observe the emissionsTo El PASO Promote the electric school busTo the torsa Visit Urban Farms. NANCE thanked local employees in LinkedIn in January.
Trump’s financing freezing is confused about climate science.
She said, “The role of the local manager of EPA area 6 was a lifetime experience. “I would like to express my deepest gratitude to 772 civil servants in the area 6 in cooperation with integrity and expertise to ensure clean air, land and water.”
Officials can now be afraid of their jobs. Layoffs In the institution. The New York Times informed the Trump administration that more than 1,100 EPA employees could be dismissed immediately, and on February 7, the EPA journalist, the 168 employees who work in the environmental justice program. Placed on administrative vacation.
Mason grew up in Cordel rural areas in Oklahoma and studied political science at the University of Oklahoma. Regional news report. He said in 2018 in Oklahoma City that meeting GEORGE HW BUSH in News 9 was inspired to enter politics.
Mason served as an EPA director of the American Indian Environment Office at the first Trump administration. He led the federal program of Oklahoma University in his hometown and worked for the Governor of Oklahoma.
Durant said, “Local administrator MASON is working hard every day to change the lives of people we serve by realizing the president’s agenda and ZELDIN’s ‘Great American Comeback’ initiative.
Mason was eavesdropping for Project 2025
Mason has maintained a relatively inexpensive one for several years in the first Trump administration and Oklahoma. However, as the president raced in 2024, Mandy M. Gunasekara, the first EPA employee of the first Trump administration, helped the EPA of Project 2025. Heritage Foundation and former Trump staff wrote a playbook for conservative governance. Trump refused during the campaign, but after he took office on January 20.
Gunasekara thanked Mason in the EPA chapter, but did not speak public about his role. The new Trump EPA, led by Lee Zeldin, has not been wasting time to establish an organization.
Another casualty of Trump’s financing freezing: New Orleans’s wooden canopy
This document is recommended to eliminate environmental justice offices and external civil rights. The EPA chapter also advises to limit the sector that needs to report greenhouse gas emissions and remove execution and compliance support office. This Playbook also requires a plan to move an EPA area and requires “more access to the area where they serve and provide expenses to Americans.”
Environmental definition has collapsed
Matthew Tejada of the Natural Resources Defense Commission, the vice president of the EPA, November 2024 Blog Post When the Project 2025 is implemented, the Environmental Definition Community said, “The loss will be much deeper and more immediately than anyone else.”
Regional 6 includes the center of the US petrochemical industry, from the genetic of New Mexico and Texas, to the construction of liquefied natural gas on the Louisiana Gulf coast. Black, Latin and indigenous communities across the region lived with related pollution.
Although oil and gas production reached a record high in the BIDEN administration, the EPA tried to solve these damage. The BIDEN administration has historically invested in an exaggerated community due to pollution, and 40 %of spending in numerous federal programs goes to the low -income community and color community through the so -called 40 -initiative.
‘It’s Demoralizing’: Trump’s freezing freezing of climate funds has left the tribe and community organizations as Limbo.
BIDEN EPA has worked closely with the New Mexican Environment Department to track unauthorized tracking. methane Discharge and disadvantages for contamination in the perm basin. EPA and NMED under James Kenney assistant have partnered relationships in several investigations. Millions of dollars of consent laws With petroleum and gas companies.
Drew Goretzka, a spokesman for NMED, said, “New Mexico is trying to solve the Permia basin and ozone emissions throughout our week. “We will exercise permission and executive authorities.”
Goretzka has been looking forward to working with NMED Kenney for several years of local manager MASON and working with him. “To do this, the two are already talking and planning the future discussion,” he said.
Platforms such as Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, an online application used to identify the environmentally disadvantaged community, have already been removed from the institution website. Environmental activists said that the end of these initiatives will have a direct impact on the local community in the region.
EIP’s DUGGAN said, “These companies have long benefited by sacrificing people in this area, and the administration, which does not believe in environmental justice, can get out of the bits and worsen the dangerous situation. “EPA is a backstop when the state can’t work to protect clean air and clean water.”
The state is trying to clean the leak well. Laws with good intentions are interfering.
Sponsor of both parties for orphans
In other areas, local managers Mason can face the pressure of industry representatives and Republican politicians who need to preserve the Viden era programs. The two party infrastructure method provided unprecedented funds to prevent orphan oil and gas wells in the country. The EPA also provided funds to reduce methane emissions from marginal oil and gas wells. Republicans such as Oklahoma and Texas were part of the biggest beneficiaries.
Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates oil and gas from the state It was reported in January To date, the state has plugged 1,110 wells to 1,110 wells. The report says at least 20,000 abandoned wells remain throughout the state.
committee Warning on January 28th After the management and budget office issued a temporary suspension of federal subsidies and loans, a well -blocked program faced an uncertain future. The committee pointed out that $ 125 million is expected to be blocked when the suspension is entered into effect.
“This institution is actively settled in the best position where the program can be quickly proceeded to prevent thousands of identified orphans in our state.”
