Throughout his marketing campaign, Donald Trump vowed to remake the federal government, promising to cut jobs, slash spending, finish diversity and inclusion programs, and dismantle the Department of Education. Now, he’s chosen a slate of nominees for cupboard posts and different key positions who’ve a historical past of pushing again in opposition to the work of the departments and businesses they’ve been tapped to steer.
When Doug Burgum was governor of North Dakota, the state sued the Department of the Interior at least five times, ProPublica reported in partnership with the North Dakota Monitor. Trump chosen Burgum to steer that very same division. In the meantime, Scott Turner, Trump’s nominee for secretary of Housing and City Improvement, has a history of voting against protections for poor tenants. And Trump’s selection to steer the Inside Income Service once supported legislation to abolish it fully.
As affirmation hearings proceed within the Senate, learn via ProPublica’s reporting on how a few of Trump’s alternatives might reshape federal businesses.
Doug Burgum, Division of the Inside
Doug Burgum, the previous governor of North Dakota, has been confirmed because the secretary of the inside, which manages federal lands and pure assets.
North Dakota sued the same department at least five times, ProPublica and the North Dakota Monitor reported this month.
One of many lawsuits took purpose on the company’s rule that restricted the quantity of methane oil firms might launch. One other focused the division’s Public Lands Rule, which locations conservation of public lands on equal footing with pure useful resource exploitation. Burgum didn’t reply to ProPublica’s request for remark, however he has beforehand stated that lots of the environmental insurance policies of the administration of President Joe Biden posed “an existential menace to the power and ag sectors, our financial system and our lifestyle.”
Billy Lengthy, Inside Income Service
Trump selected Billy Lengthy, who represented Missouri within the U.S. Home of Representatives for over a decade, to steer the Inside Income Service. Lengthy beforehand supported laws that might have abolished the company altogether. Trump has stated he needs to finish “IRS overstepping” and issued an executive order that locations a hiring freeze on the company till the brand new Treasury secretary “determines that it’s within the nationwide curiosity to carry the freeze.”
Tax specialists instructed ProPublica’s Jeremy Kohler and Alex Mierjeski final month that they imagine Long doesn’t have the right credentials to oversee the agency. Lengthy, who didn’t reply to ProPublica’s request for remark, labeled himself as a certified tax and business advisor, or CTBA, on the social community X. That designation — which tax specialists instructed ProPublica they hadn’t heard about — is obtainable solely by a small, Florida-based agency after the completion of a three-day seminar.
Scott Turner, Division of Housing and City Improvement
Trump nominated Scott Turner to steer the U.S. Division of Housing and City Improvement, which oversees federal efforts to offer housing help to low-income residents. However, as ProPublica’s Jesse Coburn and Andy Kroll reported in December, Turner has previously opposed legislation that would provide aid and protections for poor tenants.
Throughout his time within the Texas Home of Representatives, Turner opposed laws to expand affordable rental housing within the state and endorsed a bill to allow landlords to turn down applicants as a result of they obtained federal housing help. Turner has additionally beforehand described welfare as “some of the damaging issues for a household.”
A spokesperson for Turner instructed ProPublica in December: “After all ProPublica would try to paint a detrimental image of Mr. Turner earlier than he’s even given the chance to testify. We’d count on nothing much less from a publication that solely serves as a liberal mouthpiece.”
Paul Atkins, Securities and Alternate Fee
Paul Atkins is Trump’s selection to steer the Securities and Alternate Fee. Atkins, who labored as an SEC commissioner beneath George W. Bush earlier than serving because the co-chair of a crypto advocacy group, shall be accountable for regulating Trump’s personal publicly traded firm.
Present and former SEC officers instructed ProPublica’s Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi and Mierjeski in December that they nervous the company wouldn’t aggressively regulate Trump Media, which has beforehand tangled with the fee. Trump’s crypto investments — which embody a Trump-affiliated token by an organization referred to as World Liberty Monetary and a memecoin known as $Trump launched days earlier than his second inauguration — might additionally come into battle with the company.
Below Biden, SEC chair Gary Gensler led a crackdown on crypto. On the marketing campaign path, Trump promised to decontrol the trade.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Nationwide Institutes of Well being
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for secretary of Well being and Human Companies, has stated he wants to dedicate half of the National Institutes of Health’s budget towards “preventive, different and holistic approaches to well being.” Kennedy has additionally stated he needs to exchange 600 workers on the NIH.
Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, if confirmed as the pinnacle of the NIH, would get to nominate the subsequent director of the NIH’s Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments, which performs a key position in researching infectious ailments and creating remedies. On the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhattacharya grew to become a vocal critic of how then-NIAID Director Anthony Fauci dealt with the federal response. He additionally helped writer the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued in opposition to restrictions for these “at minimal threat of demise” till herd immunity is reached.
Specialists and advocates instructed ProPublica’s Anna Maria Barry-Jester this month that overhauling the NIH’s and NIAID’s work might deter research and hamstring the development of future treatments. Bhattacharya declined an interview request.
David Fotouhi, Environmental Safety Company
Trump tapped lawyer David Fotouhi for the second highest position on the Environmental Safety Company. If confirmed by the Senate, he’ll be the deputy administrator beneath Lee Zeldin, a former member of the U.S. Home of Representatives chosen to steer the company.
This month, ProPublica’s Sharon Lerner reported that Fotouhi played a critical role in pushing to roll back climate regulations whereas working as a lawyer within the division throughout Trump’s first time period. He has since labored on a lawsuit difficult the EPA’s water high quality requirements for PCBs, poisonous chemical compounds linked to some cancers. In October, Fotouhi, who declined to remark to ProPublica, challenged the EPA’s ban on the cancer-causing substance asbestos.
