Top EPA Official Unexpectedly Resigns, Citing Rampant Infighting At Agency

by Andrew Kerr

A senior member of the Trump administration’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency unexpectedly resigned last Wednesday, citing concerns of the “integrity” of long time workers at the agency. David Schnare, an outspoken climate change skeptic, was a member of the so-called EPA “landing team” tasked with creating an “action plan” to reform the agency. Schnare’s abrupt resignation came as a surprise. He was expected to accept a leading position at the EPA.“I wasn’t forced out, and it wasn’t in a tiff,” he told The Hill. “I just wasn’t in a position to achieve much anymore.” InsideEPA added that Schnare had become “increasingly frustrated with what he described as endless infighting at the agency.” Schnare heaped praise on the vast majority of the employees at the EPA for being dedicated servants, but emphasized that there are a few “who were definitely were antagonistic” to the president and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt...more

Surely there is more here, as what Schnare says about EPA is true about every federal agency where a new administration seeks to impose significant change. They will use every tool available to them to frustrate any threat to their power base. They will spread lies about you, feed you misinformation, contact their allies on the Hill, leak certain sensitive documents to the press, and delay, delay, delay by using the arcane rules of the administrative process, the personnel system, their buddies in the legal dept., and every form of "paralysis by analysis" imaginable to frustrate your efforts. Perhaps the worst is when they "capture" a fellow political appointee and convince them to do their bidding. You want to bring about change? Then be prepared to meet each one of those challenges and more. If you are not prepared and willing to overcome this type of polluted political atmosphere, then you best get out of Dodge, which is apparently what Schnare has chosen to do. Either there is more to this story than we're being told, or he has been defeated by the bureaucracy.