Acting Epa News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

This is a leftist attack on very qualified people coming into this administration and serving this country. >> ambassador eisen, i mean there's nothing prohibiting this from happening. there's no law or guideline that says a former lobbyist can't serve as an acting secretary, right? >> well, anderson, i think there is. no wonder jim schultz abandoned the trump administration. he had to get out because of cases like the case of mr. wheeler, the acting epa head. he worked on the kolash rules and he's working on the rules now in the epa and on issue after issue, the same thing. it's the revolving...

There focusing on that funding crisis and he has more than the funding crisis to deal with. members of his cabinet have been leaving left and right and just within the past month, the white house has announced the resignation of naikki haley, jon kelly and defense secretary james mattis. we have chris lu back with us, republican strategist rick tyler and jay newton small. this list of acting staff, we have acting chaff chaff, acting attorney general, acting epa administrat administrator, this is quite a few temporary positions. does it hurt getting things

An acting title, at some point we'll have an active interior secretary, we have an acting epa director. there are no deputies at the department of homeland security, at hud or the va. this is an incredibly vulnerable time for this administration to have all these positions unfilled or staffed by people with acting titles, alex. >> it is quite extraordinary. i hadn't thought about it in that perspective, but i agree 100%. let's also talk about the latest offer from the white house to reopen the now shuttered government, at least partially so. where does that stand? >> well, the first thing folk...

Grouted many, many pipes that would be -- allow any chance of risk from the basins. >> reporter: you don't know where all of these pipes are and we don't know what is risky and what is not risky. >> we can chase pipes all day long but the ultimate way of making sure we have safe closure is to remove the water and close these basins in a way that is federally approved by the epa and what we are working to do here. >> reporter: in 2015 the epa did finally take action and required straightforward measures. measures that murray lobbied against in 2017. murray's lobbyist? the new acting epa chief a...

Making sure that we have safe closure is to remove the water and close these basins in a way that's federally approved by the epa and that's what we're working to do. >> reporter: in 2015, the epa did finally take action and began requiring straight forward measures. test the ground water. close contaminating coal ash ponds. place future waste in basins that have linings. measures that murray energy lobbied against back in march of 2017. murray's lobbyist, the new acting epa chief andrew wheeler. >> i did work for a coal company and i'm not at all ashamed of the work i did for the coal company...