The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urged employees to finish out the last weeks of the Obama administration “running” to finish implementing what they can of the president’s environmental agenda.
“As I’ve mentioned to you before, we’re running — not walking — through the finish line of President Obama’s presidency,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy wrote in an email to staff after Republican nominee Donald Trump won Tuesday’s election.
“Thank you for taking that run with me. I’m looking forward to all the progress that still lies ahead,” McCarthy wrote, according to Politico.
Trump has promised to rollback EPA rules put out under President Barack Obama, including the agency’s signature global warming regulation, the Clean Power Plan. So, EPA and other regulatory agencies are likely to push through a slew of “midnight regulations” before Obama leaves office.
The Obama administration has already added 78,020 pages of new regulations to the Federal Register this year, according to the right-leaning American Action Forum (AAF), and more pages are likely on the way.
Every week this year, the administration imposed millions, and sometimes, billions of dollars in new rules. Agencies added $324 million worth of new regulatory costs in the week before the election, according to AAF.
