ICYMI: The New York Times – “Kennedy Says Trump Will ‘Make Americans Healthy.’ His Record Suggests Otherwise.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent months pledging to “Make America Healthy Again,” so here’s a reminder of how that went during Trump’s first term, and what Americans should expect from a second.

The New York Times: “Kennedy Says Trump Will ‘Make Americans Healthy.’ His Record Suggests Otherwise.”

 Mr. Kennedy, a onetime environmental lawyer and longtime vaccine critic, insisted that a second Trump administration would lead to the elimination of pesticides and other hazardous chemicals in America’s food and water supply.

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As president, though, Mr. Trump ended more than 100 environmental policies, including bans on toxic chemicals known to pose serious health threats. He installed industry lobbyists in top jobs, where they took actions that helped the companies they once represented and worked to gut most federal health and safety agencies. ‘They basically did what industry asked them to do,’ said Rena Steinzor, who teaches administrative and food safety law at the University of Maryland. She said it was ‘laughable’ to think a second Trump administration would be different.

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The Trump administration rejected efforts to ban a number of toxic chemicals. One decision that angered public health experts was allowing the continued use of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that had been widely applied on food crops. It has been linked to neurological damage in children, including developmental disorders in toddlers.

Under President Trump, senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency rejected a finding by their own scientists detailing the ways in which chlorpyrifos can stunt brain development in young children. President Biden’s administration has banned chlorpyrifos, though that decision is being challenged in court.

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Mr. Trump promised to “drain the swamp” and limit the influence of lobbyists in Washington. But he hired hundreds of lobbyists to run his administration. That included a former coal lobbyist to lead the E.P.A., an auto lobbyist to run the Energy Department and a former oil and gas lobbyist to head the Interior Department. 

The same approach was evident among the top Trump appointees overseeing chemical policy. Mr. Trump appointed Peter Wright to lead the E.P.A.’s cleanup of thousands of Superfund sites. Mr. Wright previously spent 19 years as a lawyer at Dow Company, one of the world’s largest chemical makers. There, he fought to lessen Dow’s responsibility to contribute to the cleanup of a toxic waste site in Michigan.

Nancy B. Beck, Mr. Trump’s principal deputy head of chemical safety at the E.P.A., came from the American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers. At the E.P.A., Ms. Beck weakened the process for regulating chemicals like the pesticide chlorpyrifos. Other senior E.P.A. leaders came from industry, including David Dunlap, who had been a policy chief at Koch Industries, which has long fought regulation. He recused himself from work on formaldehyde because Koch Industries was a major producer.