During the Biden administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn’t hide its close relationship with environmental groups and left-wing activists. They had an open-door policy for the agency to support NGO campaigns. What follows is the Introduction to a Firebreak investigation into collusion between activist groups and EPA administrators, directors and staffers.
It is important to realize that NGO activists, journalists and academics who protest industry engagement with government agencies are merely setting up hypocritical smokescreens to hide how they themselves have been using their networks in government agencies as advocacy arms for their lobbying campaigns. We see that, without restraint, with the MAHA activists dictating dogma at the Department of Health and Human Services, but it was much more institutionalized, and more discreet, at the U.S. EPA during the Biden administration.
Relying on Activist Communications Networks
The EPA openly relied on NGOs and activists to promote and amplify their campaigns. But it is difficult to know how much of the Biden-era EPA policies were dictated by these same NGOs and activists.
In April 2024, for example, the EPA published a news release on PFAS featuring the views of radical organizations and individuals including the Environmental Working Group, tort lawyers, actors like Mark Ruffalo, Clean Water Action, Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and Moms Clean Air Force (among many others). As each group amplified their campaign positions, it became evident that the activist tail was wagging the EPA policy dog.
The same network was tapped into when the agency needed help promoting their policy on soot pollution in February 2024. NGOs like the NRDC, Sierra Club, EDF, Climate Action Campaign, Moms Clean Air Force, Climate Power, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Clean Air Taskforce, and the Center for American Progress were more than happy to use government press releases to promote their campaigns (and the EPA welcomed their inputs).
Somewhere in their ambition to save the planet, the EPA administrators seemed to have forgotten that they were there to represent all stakeholders and publics, and not just the activist NGOs who shared the activist political agenda.
Activist Career Ladder
NGOs tend to be small, flat organizations so ambitious activists need to expand their career prospects beyond their campaign movements. This usually involves pursuing job opportunities within their networks in government, global UN bodies or deep-pocketed foundations where they have a better basis to drive their ideology into policy. The EPA has been a wonderful playground for dogmatic fundamentalists to expand their activism.
Take, for example, U.S. EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who has had a long history of environmental activism. Before Biden appointed him administrator at the EPA, Regan worked for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) from 2008 to 2016 — and in December 2025 joined the board of EDF Action, the activist group’s “advocacy arm.”
Environmental activists don’t have patience for people who may disagree with their agenda. Early in Regan’s tenure at U.S. EPA, he removed over 40 experts appointed by the previous Trump administration to various U.S. EPA scientific advisory boards despite them mostly being appointed to three-year terms. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky) in a letter to Regan in April 2021, wrote:
Related on the SLP
“Traditionally science advisory boards are bipartisan panels used to provide advice to the Administrator. Unfortunately, it appears the Biden administration is continuing to purge officials in the government who do not share its political beliefs.”
It would appear that the Environmental Defense Fund had enough of its own experts to fill these posts.
Empowering an Activist Army
“…the EPA’s goals are far too wide in scope to be fulfilled by one entity. Thus, the contributions of organizations also committed to ensuring clean air, clean water, and a healthy future for all have built the groundwork for a strong EPA…”
Regan accepted invitations from fringe environmental organizations to be their keynote speaker. In July 2024, Climate Action Campaign held an event entitled, “Celebrating Solutions for Pollution with EPA Administrator Michael Regan” that took place at the Hotel Washington. A blogger who covered the event summed up Regan’s comments: “The central message conveyed by Administrator Regan at the event, however, was showing his gratitude to individual organizations and citizens who have contributed more to the ability of the EPA to accomplish what it has than most realize.”
“Regan himself said that the EPA’s goals are far too wide in scope to be fulfilled by one entity. Thus, the contributions of organizations also committed to ensuring clean air, clean water, and a healthy future for all have built the groundwork for a strong EPA — a fact which Regan believes has truly separated the EPA under the current administration from the rest, and a fact which should motivate organizations to keep fighting to protect human health and the environment.”
If you were an environmental activist group with an agenda, then Michael Regan clearly let it be known that he would do whatever it took to support your campaign. There was no question of objective policies in service to the entire population – the EPA was coordinating campaigns built on bias and activism. The Biden purge of the U.S. EPA has left an agency laden with activist directors pursuing their personal special interests on the taxpayer’s dime. Activists like Regan also left a wide-open door and welcome mat for opportunistic environmentalists to use the government agency to communicate their campaigns.
Old Warriors Never Fade Away
There is no doubt that Michael Regan and other Biden appointees will be hanging around DC, doing their best to disrupt policy and promote activist interests with their former EPA colleagues. Inside the EPA, directors and staffers are still there, keeping their heads down until the corner-office chairs change again, doing what they can to further their interests and networks. Meanwhile the revolving door creates opportunities for former EPA directors and administrators to lobby decision-makers from a higher perch. Michael Regan’s present position as a lobbyist for the Environmental Defense Fund is just one case.
David Zaruk is the Firebreak editor and also writes under the pen-name The Risk Monger. David is a retired professor, environmental-health risk analyst, science communicator, promoter of evidence-based policy, and philosophical theorist on activists and the media. Find David on X @Zaruk
A version of this article was originally posted at Firebreak and has been reposted here with permission. Any reposting should credit the original author and provide links to both the GLP and the original article. Find Firebreak on X @the_firebreak
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