Pruitt names high school graduate Cathy Stepp to head the EPA’s Great Lakes Region, where she’ll be responsible for 85% of our nation’s fresh water reserves

Kakistocracy is defined as “a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.”

Above is a photo of Cathy Stepp. Until deciding to run for elected office in Wisconsin back in the early 2000s, she ran a residential construction company with her husband. She has no scientific credentials. She has never so much as attended college. And, unless we stop it from happening, she will soon be responsible, as the head of the Great Lakes region of the Environmental Protection Agency, for making sure the people of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin have safe air to breathe and water to drink.

While it may be true that Stepp has very little in the way of relevant experience when it comes to fighting on the behalf of regular Americans to ensure that their air and water are both clean and safe, she did spend several years as the head of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, where she made a name for herself as someone willing to slash science and research budgets, enact more “business friendly” policies, and fight against the scientific community on climate change. [Stepp, an outspoken Trump supporter, had served in the Wisconsin State Senate from 2003 to 2007, before agreeing to run the Wisconsin DNR under Republican Governor Scott Walker in 2011. Walker liked what he called, her “chamber of commerce mentality.”] And apparently this attracted the attention of Scott Pruitt, the man selected by Donald Trump to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency from the inside. So, after a short stint as a deputy administrator in EPA Region 7, which oversees Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and nine tribal nations, Stepp has apparently been tapped to run EPA Region 5, where my family and I live.

Assuming Stepp is confirmed for the position, she will be the main person responsible for ensuring that the more than 30 million people who live in the Great Lakes basin have potable water and breathable air. She will also be the person charged with oversight of approximately 85% of our nation’s fresh water reserves. She would, in other words, be the person we’d be counting on to ensure that the people of Flint are no longer drinking poison water, failsafe systems are in place to ensure against pipeline ruptures in the Great Lakes, and polluters are held accountable for their actions.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, however, appears to see the role somewhat differently than I do. In announcing Stepp’s appointment, Pruitt didn’t mention the serious environmental challenges facing the Great Lakes region. Instead, he said that Stepp’s presence would, bring “a fresh perspective” to the EPA as the agency worked to “implement President Trump’s agenda”. [I thought the EPA’s agenda was to protect the environment, but, apparently, at least according to Pruitt, it’s to help advance Trump’s pro-corporate agenda.]

As for what we might expect from Stepp, here, from Pitch.com, is just a little of what she accomplished while are the Wisconsin DNR, before being called up to join Pruitt and the EPA wrecking crew.

…Her record in the Badger State is in step with Pruitt’s pro-industry to-do list. While she was head of the Wisconsin DNR, enforcement of environmental regulations dwindled. At least two audits were critical of the agency; one found that, 95 percent of the time from 2005 through 2014, the DNR had failed to issue violation notices to known wastewater polluters. According to news reports, she also greatly restructured the agency, shedding many of the science and environmental professionals. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that on her watch, the DNR blacklisted citizens who were perceived as having asked too many questions…

And, if you still want more, Kerry Schumann, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, had this to say about the appointment of Stepp to run the EPA’s Great Lakes Region.

…Before Cathy Stepp’s appointment as secretary of the Wisconsin DNR, the agency was widely considered one of the best of its kind in the country. Under her watch, the agency’s environmental enforcement abilities were dismantled, its scientists kicked out, its website scrubbed of climate change information and, under the orders of the Walker Administration, she shifted its focus from protecting Wisconsin’s natural resources to handing out favors to polluters. It makes sense the Trump EPA is looking for people like Cathy Stepp, people who are willing to sell out our environment to the highest bidder. The consequences will be stark. With environmental rollbacks like the Foxconn disaster, the pending removal of wetlands protections, and the elimination of all our air quality standards in the state, Wisconsin will also have fewer and fewer protections from the EPA to help maintain water we can drink, air we can breathe, land that doesn’t flood, and its public health…

None of this, of course, should surprise us. This is what’s happening at every level of government today, as Trump makes good on the promise of Steve Bannon to “destroy the administrative state,” appointing an anti-public education zealot to head the Department of Education, a person who said on the record that he wanted to abolish the Department of Energy to run the Department of Energy, and a man who rejects the EPA’s very mission to head the EPA. The goal is to drastically shrink government through a brilliant combination of evil and incompetence, taking power from the American people, and handing it over to the corporations and the super-wealthy individuals who are keeping the Republican party in power, even as their ideas are increasingly unpopular with the American people. And Stepp, I’m afraid, is just the most recent foot soldier in this fight… someone willing to hack away at the very underpinnings of our nation in exchange for a position of power and the promise of financial reward.

Personally, I’m at a loss as to how we stop Stepp’s nomination from advancing. As far as I know, regional EPA directors don’t even need to go through confirmation hearings at the federal level. And, even if we could derail her, I don’t imagine the next person in line would be any better. Still, though, it can’t hurt to call your elected officials and ask what they intend to do about the nomination of Cathy Stepp, right?