We thought the EPA during the first Trump administration was the worst EPA we could have. How wrong we were.
In 2025, the Revolving Door swung. And swung. And swung. Until all major management positions within the EPA were fully stacked with industry lackeys.
Trump appointed an inexperienced Lee Zeldin to lead the agency. Who is Lee Zeldin? Zeldin represented New York’s First District (eastern Long Island) in Congress after serving for 4 years in the NY State Senate. According to Climate Power, Zeldin has received over $410,000 from the oil and gas industry in his election campaigns, including over $260,000 while running for Congress and more than $150,000 in his failed gubernatorial run in NY against Kathy Hochul. He has taken more than $60,000 from Koch Industries over the course of his political career, according to Open Secrets data. Money talks and it’s no wonder that Zeldin has made it clear that he strongly supports increased fossil fuel extraction and the pollution that comes with it.
Zeldin is just a politician, a loyal Trump supporter and yes-man, the public face of and a useful idiot for Big Chemical, Big Ag, and Dirty Energy. It’s the leadership under Zeldin that has the expertise to do the dirty work of the polluting industries.
These managers think they can avoid the ire of public opinion, continuing to anonymously slither through the Revolving Door over and over again.
It’s time for us to do more than criticize Zeldin. We’re going to show you faces and name names. Can these people even feel shame?
EPA Office of the Administrator
The Office of the Administrator (AO) provides executive and logistical support for the EPA Administrator, currently Lee Zeldin.
David Fotouhi, EPA Deputy Administrator
David Fotouhi was an associate attorney in the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP for nearly 6 years defending polluting companies accused of harming people and the environment. He went through the EPA Revolving Door during the first Trump administration, tasked with rolling back clean water and climate regulations.
He left to become a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP during the Biden administration.
In 2025, he again strolled through the Revolving Door to become Deputy Administrator, the second in command at the EPA. This time he’s tasked with rolling back or overturning regulations on asbestos, PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’, clean water protections, and anything else that will help polluters.
To read more about Fotouhi, check out this ProPublica article by Sharon Lerner.
EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP)
The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), which includes the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), is responsible for regulation of toxic chemicals and pesticides. OCSPP’s stated mission is “to protect you, your family, and the environment from potential risks from pesticides and toxic chemicals using the law and sound science.”
Douglas Troutman, OCSPP Assistant Administrator
In December 2025, Douglas Troutman became the newest Revolving Door hack planted in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP). As Assistant Administrator, he’s the top dog within the OCSPP.
Previously, Troutman spent nearly 18 years as co-CEO and lobbyist for the American Cleaning Institute (ACI), a lobbying organization representing producers of cleaning products and chemical ingredients.
Troutman will oversee the deregulation of toxic chemicals and pesticides.
Nancy Beck, OCSPP Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator
Nancy Beck worked for over 5 years as a director for the chemical industry lobbying group, American Chemistry Council, before joining the EPA as Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) during Trump’s first term.
The Hill reported: Maria Doa, a former EPA official who worked on chemical issues at the agency for several decades, including during the first Trump administration, said that Beck tried to weaken the science surrounding toxic chemicals. “When I was at EPA dealing with Nancy Beck, I regularly pushed back against her efforts to undermine the science, to change scientific determinations so that chemicals would not be regulated.” She particularly noted that Beck pushed back on efforts to reduce exposure to toxic chemicals. “She would downplay the risk from trichloroethylene, which causes three types of cancer, multiple effects on the body, developmental toxicity,” Doa said. Doa also recounted a meeting in which she said Beck did not appear to care that deaths related to paint remover methylene chloride were likely being undercounted. “[Beck] said, ‘Well, what is that, like 1 percent? What’s the issue?’… which is just shocking, because parents lost children, and children lost a father or mother, so there were a number of deaths,” Doa recalled.
With the return of Trump in 2025, Nancy Beck also returned to the OCSPP, this time with a pay raise as Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, the office’s number two.
Lynn Dekleva, OCSPP Deputy Assistant Administrator
Lynn Dekleva worked for the chemical giant DuPont for over 32 years before being appointed by Trump during his first administration as the Associate Deputy Assistant Administrator within the OCSPP.
She then left and spent 3 years as senior director and lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council. During that time, she led a lobbying campaign attempting to stop the EPA from regulating carcinogenic formaldehyde.
In 2025, she was brought back to the EPA, with a pay raise, as Deputy Assistant Administrator in the OCSPP. In December 2025, the EPA announced a proposal to double the threshold for inhalation exposure to formaldehyde.
The American Chemistry Council has also tasked her with abolishing a program under which the agency assesses the risks of chemicals to human health.
Kyle Kunkler, OCSPP Deputy Assistant Administrator
Kyle Kunkler worked as a senior lobbyist for the American Soybean Association (ASA) for over 5 years before being appointed to the position of Deputy Assistant Administrator in the OCSPP in June 2025. During his time with the ASA, he lobbied Congress on pesticide policies and against pesticide regulations. The ASA has been part of Bayer-Monsanto’s industry coalition lobbying states and the federal government for pesticide-harm immunity.
Shortly after being appointed to be in charge of pesticide policy at the EPA, Kunkler got right to work doing the bidding of the agrichemical industry. The EPA is proposing to re-approve cancer-causing, highly volatile and drift-prone dicamba herbicide, which federal courts have twice restricted, while Bayer-Monsanto is preparing to increase its use by developing GMO dicamba-tolerant sugarbeets.
EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM)
According to the EPA’s website, “the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) works to protect the human health and environment of all communities by preventing contamination, cleaning up and returning land to productive use, and responding to emergencies.”
Steven Cook, OLEM Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator
Steven Cook is a pollution industry lawyer that has also twice passed through the Revolving Door. His first stint at the EPA as Deputy Assistant Administrator in the OLEM was, surprise, surprise, during the first Trump administration. OLEM is the EPA office that oversees toxic waste cleanups. He left the agency as the Biden administration took over.
When the Biden EPA proposed a new rule that would force polluters to clean up pollution from PFAS “Forever Chemicals,” Cook represented chemical companies suing to block the new rule, attempting to shift cleanup costs estimated in the tens of billions or more away from polluters and onto taxpayers.
In January 2025, Trump gave him a senior role, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator in OLEM. In summer 2025, the new PFAS cleanup rule was reversed.
The Revolving Door Must Close
To be clear, there has always been a Revolving Door and resulting corruption at the EPA, under past Democrat and Republican administrations alike. But what we witnessed in 2025 was a total takeover of the EPA by industry and the firing of scientists who normally serve as a bulwark against corruption by political appointees.
We, the taxpayers, are paying this swamp $200,000+ salaries to destroy our health and the health of our environment. All of these individuals will have even bigger financial prizes waiting for them after the second Trump administration ends and they slither through the Revolving Door back to industry.
The U.S. Congress created and has purview over the EPA. We must demand that this affront to America’s health ends. Congress must fire every single person named in this blog. Then Congress must reform the EPA so that the Revolving Door is forever closed.
Get these paid evil doers out of the EPA
This is the kind of trash you throw out not put in charge of protecting our food supply.
I agree. The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.
CLOSE THE EPA REVOLVING DOOR.
The EPA seems to currently exist to protect the chemical industry…
End the corporate influence at EPA!
The EPA is supposed to stand for “Environmental Protection Agency,” No what is is now:
“EVERY POLLUTOR ABSOOLVED.”
Hey, folks – these administrators, sooner or later, will have to breathe the same air, eat crops grown in the same soil, and drink the same water as the rest of us. It’s in their best interest to MAINTAIN, not lower, standards. Ya think?
Close The EPA Revolving Door
Logic and common sense should tell the EPA that they should “protect” and work towards that goal.
We ALL have a responsibility to work together in order to Protect and SAVE our Wilderness, Waterways and Environment from senseless Destruction and Poisoning in the name of Ignorance and Greed.
Bad
You have put the fox in charge of the henhouse and you think people are happy about this. You are wrong incredibly wrong. All of these people have have to go.
Do the right thing for our world and our children and grandchildren.
We read daily this Administration’s disregard for protecting the environment and Americans.
Now, we know why!
Now the Environmental Poisoning Agency.
Apparently no one currently appointed to key positions in the EPA believes in God because their behavior is, quite justly, GOD DAMNED!
The money grubbing pigs always get their way and we’re doomed eventually. They know it, but they’re convinced that they’ll be dead before it gets to be too much of a problem. They don’t even care about their own kids and grand kids. I’m glad I never brought any kids into this fascist cesspool of greed and corruption.
Get rid of the of ALL those that have ties to the detrimental agencies they worked for previously that produced chemicals that are harmful to humans, animals and plants or have no prior experience and knowledge of what EPA standards mean.
There appears to be a lot of corruption coming to the EPA today. This should really be addressed. The EPA should function the way that it was intended, protecting the land and people of this country from environmental contamination. It is not supposed to be populated by yes-men who green-light any half-lucrative dirty industry. We are rolling back policy now, this really should be addressed.