A new poll of US voters shows that the vast majority of Americans want the Environmental Protection Agency to do its job and keep toxic chemicals out of the air and water. But the EPA’s current mission, under Lee Zeldin, is to poison Americans and raise their health and energy costs. When voters learn about this, they show significant concern.
For the last year and a half, the EPA has been on a tear trying to destroy science and to allow polluters to harm you, as Lee Zeldin squats in its head office and works to sabotage the agency in any way he can.
We’ve reported on his plan to decrease your fuel efficiency which will lead to higher costs, his effort to steal grant funding from states that was making home improvements cheaper for Americans, on his employees raising the alarm about his constant lies, and on the fact that he says, quite literally, that your life is worth nothing.
But Zeldin has done far more to harm you in addition to that. He’s fast-tracked data centers without environmental review, has tried to hide chemical leaks from the public, he wants give coal plants lifelong permits to dump ash without oversight, he’s filled top roles with chemical lobbyists, and he wants to allow more forever chemicals.
These efforts sound extreme – so extreme that many disbelieve them on their face, because it’s hard to fathom that anyone would be that evil. But they are all factual moves the EPA has made, and in fact this is just a small portion of the ways that Zeldin is trying to poison you.
And in the few cases that Zeldin has continued a program that will reduce toxic pollution, it’s been a Biden program he’s taking credit for.
But, unfortunately, Americans mostly don’t know that this is the case. Despite that we and the rest of the media have reported this takeover and weaponization of the EPA to impose more danger on your life at the behest of the fossil fuel and chemical industries, these reports have received comparatively less interest.
Which leads to the interesting contradiction revealed by a new poll conducted by Environmental Protection Network and YouGov.
Poll shows Americans don’t want to be poisoned by Lee Zeldin
The survey asked 2,025 US voters a number of questions about the EPA.
The vast majority of voters answered that they want to see the EPA strengthen regulations regarding toxic chemicals, wanted tougher enforcement against corporate polluters, recognized that regulatory rollbacks would likely increase costs rather than lower them, and said that even if regulations against toxic chemicals raised their costs, they still would rather see those regulations strengthened. These opinions received majority support across the political spectrum.
In addition, respondents did not believe that the promise to deliver “the cleanest air and water” has been kept – though on that one, somehow, a majority of conservatives agreed, despite the opposite being true.
When asked about the EPA’s priorities, most Americans said that the agency should prioritize reducing air and water pollution, ensuring the safety of chemicals used in everyday life, ensuring corporations comply with the law, and so on.
Americans mostly said that the EPA should not prioritize “restoring American energy dominance” or “making the US the AI capitol of the world,” two efforts that the EPA has claimed to undertake in the last year and a half, but which the republican party has actually worked against.
But also, that they don’t know about Zeldin’s efforts to poison them
The most interesting part of the poll, though, is how much respondents’ opinions moved after being asked the poll questions. This is a common measurement in polls these days – you ask someone’s opinions beforehand, then ask them their opinions of various actions that have been taken, then ask them if their opinions have changed with that new knowledge.
Across the political spectrum, respondents changed their opinion by a significant margin over the course of the poll, as they learned about Zeldin’s efforts to poison them. 39% moved their opinion more towards the idea that the EPA is headed on the wrong track, and doing too little to prevent pollution. This movement is much higher than can be seen in national polls on other issues.
The amount of movement probably reflects an ignorance of EPA’s actions, which is further reflected in Americans’ lack of knowledge of who EPA administrator Lee Zeldin even is. 42% were unsure of their opinion of Zeldin, and 56% were unsure of their opinion of Davi Fotouhi, the deputy administrator of the EPA. Both of these men have been on the front lines of efforts to poison you.
And so, the survey concludes that there is no debate on the issues – the EPA is doing the wrong thing by working to poison you, and it should instead work to do its job and work to prevent corporations from leaking toxic chemicals into the air and water. The problem, here, is that Americans simply aren’t aware of the EPA’s efforts to poison you, and when they learn about it, they oppose it.
So now we (and you, the reader) know what we have to do: inform people about the EPA’s efforts to increase toxic pollution, so that they can understand the negative effects that Zeldin and his party are forcing on the environment.
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