Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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During a week that was dominated by Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford and Rod Rosenstein, the news about another figure in Washington, Ruth Etzel, got swamped.
But it was important, and highly disturbing.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Etzel had been placed on indefinite leave as head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Children’s Health Protection. Then, shortly afterward, BuzzFeed published an email it had obtained in which Etzel said her removal was part of a move by the Trump administration to close the office.
“I appear to be the ‘fall guy’ for their plan to ‘disappear’ the office of children’s health,” the email read. “It had been apparent for about 5 months that the top EPA leaders were conducting ‘guerilla warfare’ against me as the leader of the OCHP, but now it’s clearly official.”
That’s alarming. Although most Americans probably haven’t heard of Etzel and her office is a small one, with a budget of only $2 million, shutting down the OCHP would be a blow to the environmental health of America’s children.
In her 30 years as a government regulator, Etzel had established an excellent reputation, according to a number of published reports about her ouster. The pediatrician whose blood testing of children uncovered the water crisis in Flint, Mich., called her a “giant” in the field.
“Her role is critical to ensuring that children — who are disproportionately impacted by environmental burdens — are protected,” Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of the pediatric residency program at Flint’s Hurley Medical Center, told Vox.
Indeed, children aren’t simply smaller versions of adults when it comes to environmental hazards and pollution. Toxins can have outsized effects on their developing organs, and since children naturally put things in their mouths, they’re far more likely than adults to ingest hazardous substances like lead paint chips.
That’s why the office was created during the Clinton administration — as an acknowledgement that the special needs of children needed to be addressed by a specialized group of medical officials.
During President Donald Trump’s administration, however, children’s health has been under heavy assault.
Former EPA Director Scott Pruitt rejected a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos, for example, which has been linked to fetal brain damage. The administration’s own EPA has admitted that Trump’s coal-heavy energy plan would lead to as many as 120,000 additional cases of worsened asthma problems, many among children. Meanwhile, Trump’s rollbacks of fuel mileage standards will increase air pollution, which also will increase respiratory illnesses among children.
Now comes this apparent effort to kill the OCHP, along with a related revelation that the EPA stalled an initiative by the office to spearhead an interagency approach to protect children from lead exposure.
Clearly, acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler has picked up right where Pruitt left off. And that’s left experts nervous, as Wheeler is seen as being more effective than the erratic Pruitt.
That being the case, it’s crucial that Nevada lawmakers keep a close watch on the administration and use any method available to them to block any moves that would affect the health and safety of our children.
Kids need all the Ruth Etzels they can get. Instead, they’ve got Trump throwing them to the wolves.
