First it was foxes-to-guard-the-hen-house political appointments. Then it was undoing environmental protections.
Later came drastically cut environmental protection budgets; the erasures of publicly available data on everything from regulatory violations, violators and sanctions, to the simple words “climate change” from the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Now we have the actual muzzling of EPA scientists who were told last week that they could not present their research on climate change at a conference in Rhode Island.
If you think this is just more partisan, inside baseball in the beltway bulls-eye of Washington, think again.
The Clean Air Act took Chattanooga from it’s “dirtiest” air label to the “Scenic City” outdoor mecca it is today, fueling a $1.2 billion tourism industry here.