Presidential Administrations’ Effect on Environmental Agencies: A Side-by-Side Comparative Study Between

Brazil and the United States

By: Tomas K. Ferreira

Introduction

In both Brazil and the United States there has been a dramatic shift in the political parties

of the presidential administrations. With this shift some may wonder how it may affect federal

agencies—specifically, agencies that don’t have bipartisan support. The new shift in political

parties can be seen in the United States of America under Donald J. Trump’s administration, and

Brazil under newly elected Jair Bolsonaro’s administration. The reason for concern is similar in

both examples and yet different in its mechanism. In the United States, the concern in how we

deal with environmental issues lies in the magnitude of political influence that is held by the

United States. A country so influential, taking on environmentally regressive ideologies might be

a negative influence to countries around the world. This is concerning when the current

administration of the U.S. is one whose rhetoric is of negligence to environmental affairs. In

Brazil however, the problem lies in the responsibility it has, being responsible for the largest

biodiversity in the entire planet. This responsibility is alarming, even more so in current times, as
the nation welcomes the new administration, which much like the U.S, is known for an

environmentally negligent rhetoric.

In my research, I hope to find potential links between a nation’s given administration and

its effects on governmental agencies—particularly, agencies responsible for environmental

affairs. I will be doing a side by side comparison of the United States and Brazil. Furthermore, I

will be studying the same political identity as exemplified in two entirely separate cases: Brazil

and the United States. I hope to find patterns in studying these two examples, considering how

distant from another they are, while also sharing so many similar traits.

To accomplish my research, I will divide my research into two sections: interviews with

people working inside the EPA, and data collected from primary sources that help give me an

objective understanding of the topic. For the first section of the research, I will interview various

people within different agencies. In the United States, I will be focusing primarily on the EPA.

On the other hand, in Brazil, I will be focusing on various Brazilian agencies associated with

environmental protection. Coming into this research, my knowledge of the agencies involved in

Brazilian environmental affairs was very limited. However, to my benefit, I am fluent in

Portuguese, and was able to contact employees working within the Brazilian EPA, or “IBAMA”

as it is known in Brazil. Therefore, I will be able to interview people in both Brazil and the U.S.

In the work done within the research on the American side, I will be interviewing EPA

employees from as many corners of the U.S as I can. Entering this research, I learned that in the

United States the EPA is divided into 10 regions, one of which is in New York City. The New

York City branch will be my primary focus. However, I will still aim to interview workers in as

many of the other branches as possible, so I may get a clearer understanding that spreads to a

nationwide scope.
 Now, for my second section of the research, I will be collecting data. The data I hope to

collect would shed some light on the fluctuation in administered budget to the EPA/IBAMA

according to different Federal administrations. Therefore, I would seek to collect data that spans

at least 10 years, so I may compare at least two different administrations’ budget appropriations.

Part I: Brazil

Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (BIERN): The

Brazilian Equivalent of the EPA

To begin my research, I started with the focus on Brazil. To research how the newly

elected Bolsonaro would affect Brazilian environmental ministries I decided to interview

someone within the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources

(BIERN). The person being interviewed is Alberto Klefasz. Alberto Klefasz is an employee at

BIERN. Upon interviewing Klefasz, my first question was a very broad and encompassing one,

“What do you think will be the effects of Bolsonaro’s administration on the BIERN?” As

Klefasz explained, the immediate effects of Bolsonaro’s administration would be everything but

subtle.

Firstly, he explained that in the new administration the plan of action is to merge the

Ministry of Agriculture, with the Ministry of Environmental Affairs. While this may not sound

like a problem, Klefasz explained how this is a problem for two different reasons. Firstly, the

Ministry of Agriculture in Brazil is entirely antagonistic to the Ministry of Environmental affairs.

The Ministry of Agriculture is solely concerned with agricultural production. However, in Brazil

this is particularly problematic because agricultural production in Brazil is most inexpensive and
efficiently increased if done through a slash-and-burn method within the Amazon rainforest. And

as far as the Ministry of Agriculture is concerned, the only thing stopping them from increasing

agricultural yields are efforts that aim to impede agricultural practices in the Amazon. In this

case, it is the Ministry of Environmental affairs that is most militant about restricting the very

practices that the Ministry of Agriculture is so eager to do. Therefore, removing power from the

Ministry of Environmental Affairs is in highest priorities for a cornucopian administration that

places more importance on growth and production over conservation and preservation.

Now, the above mentioned paragraph was the first reason why merging the Ministry of

Agriculture with the Ministry of Environmental Affairs is problematic. The second reason

however, is in that the Ministry of Environmental Affairs is in fact a parent organization for what

would constitute the largest concentration of Brazilian agencies devoted to environmental

conservation. As Klefasz explained, the Ministry of Environmental Affairs or MEA in short, is in

fact the parent organization of other Environmental agencies, including the BIERN. The BIERN

was once fully responsible for all environmental matters, without any delegation to other

agencies. Eventually however, the BIERN was named responsible for specifically licensing land

use, authorization and inspection. The task of detecting which areas must be classified as

problem areas was delegated to a newer agency: The Chico Mendez Institute for Biodiversity or

CMIB for short. The CMIB, like the BIERN, is also under the parent organization that is the

Ministry of Environmental Affairs.

Therefore, given the two reasons that I have just given, the merging of the Ministry of

Environmental Affairs with the Ministry of Agriculture is a particularly problematic issue. By

merging the two, we would be essentially placing the MEA’s power under the control of the MA.

And as I stated earlier, this is in the best interest of the MA, and in the most compromising of
positions for the MEA to be in. The MEA is one that is meant to check the MA’s actions. This of

course holds true in Brazil more so any country where the fight is never ending between those

who see the Amazon’s sprawling land as opportunity for farming usage, and those who seek to

conserve and preserve its natural ecology. But the merging of the MA with the MEA is what

some speculate as being the fruit of political corruption and lobbying by large-scale agrobusiness

industry leaders.

Most interestingly however, is the support that is received by Bolsonaro. What is most

important, is the type of support he receives. Klefasz, in my interview with him, told me that

amongst the supporters of Bolsonaro, are a group called “Frente ruralista” (Ruralist Front in

English.) The Ruralist Front is a group of agrobusiness executives and large-scale soy and

pasture farmers. Therefore, it is somewhat of a concern when the Bolsonaro administration

receives donations from this Ruralist Front. And furthermore, this potential corruption that is

driving Bolsonaro’s administration to adopt such environmentally irresponsible actions makes it

less likely that a change of mind will take place.

Fortunately, there are other parties that stand for the other side also. Some countries are

weary of allowing imports that are rooted in environmental malpractice. As Klefasz explained in

my interview with him, China and some unnamed European countries are threatening to cease

trade with Brazil should Brazil embark on environmentally reckless methods of producing their

agricultural exports. Such environmentally reckless behavior would include the deforestation of

the Amazon rainforest to allow for the repurposing of such land into agricultural havens; a task

that would most efficiently done through the merging of the MEA and MA.

Now, Brazil’s political landscape has been affecting the environment long before

Bolsonaro’s administration made its way into power. And the issue is one that therefore, extends
past Bolsonaro’s placement into power. Before him, Klefasz explained that the former president

Michel Temer’s administration, successfully passed a bill that would freeze Brazil’s budget

spending ceiling for 20 years. This encompasses the public sectors of education, infrastructure,

and of course, government funded conservational work. The problem lies in the possibility that

the country’s economy finds a new surge in this 20-year time frame. Therefore, however positive

this bill may be for the ailing country’s fragile economical state, is a disaster for public sectors

such as the BIERN and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (CMIBC.) In

the occasion that Brazil’s economy is strengthened and sees rising GDP numbers in the incoming

decades, the country’s agencies such as the BIERN and the CMIBC will be unable to reap the

benefits of the thriving economy.

The Effects of Underfunding on Brazilian Agencies

Alberto Klefasz, being an employee of the BIERN for long enough to see its fluctuations

in funding knew how to answer this question as he was currently facing the repercussions of

underbudgeting at his workplace. Klefasz explained that in the BIERN, when the budget is

meager, the first repercussion is a decreased amount of “competitions.” Competitions, as Klefasz

explained, are a common hiring process in Brazil for public sectors of employment. The way

they work is the employer— normally a government agency—will create an exam and allow

applicants from throughout the country to take it, to then use the scores to find potential

employees. Now, while this is certainly an efficient hiring process, is very costly. And when the

budget is low for a government agency such as the BIERN, there will be less money to initiate
these competitions, and ultimately less people will be hired. This is an obvious problem for an

agency such as the BIERN. As people begin retiring, the agency needs new employees, all the

while less people are being hired, thus creating a net loss of employees. Furthermore, when the

budget is meager, there is much less money available to carry out missions. Missions, in an

agency such as the BIERN, in a country such as Brazil is a particularly important part of the

work they are responsible for. For in Brazil, the BIERN’s primary goal is to preserve the natural

ecology of the Amazon rainforest, and to do so, there is a great necessity for missions to remote

areas within the Amazon rainforest. In these trips there needs to be a budget to afford helicopters,

accommodations, supplies, and military reinforcement among other things. Surely an expensive

effort that is not accommodated for in meager budgets.

Lastly, Klefasz went on to explain an anecdote in his workplace within the BIERN where

the change in administration proved to be exceptionally problematic for his team. In this account

he explained how given the biodiversity of Brazil, and the various wildlife inhabiting it, he and

his team, along with the rest of BIERN is delegated the delicate task of rescuing and nursing

ailed wildlife. Among these wild animals, are ones facing endangerment. Unfortunately, upon

the new emergence of the Bolsonaro administration, priorities have been so low, that federal

funding for food for rescued wildlife is cut short. However, the extent to which food has been cut

short is so far reaching that the entire agency is in a state of frenzy in an attempt to decide how to

maintain these animals alive despite the federal neglect. Surely therefore, in Brazil we see an

alarming level of power of the administration over the environmental agencies, capable of even

creating such unfavorable work conditions that the team has no choice other than to discontinue

their work, despite how important it may be.

Part II: The United States

I chose to do research on two countries following the same thesis. The reason I chose

both Brazil and the United States is because both are under ideologically similar federal

administrations in terms of rhetoric and ideals. Also, both countries are important figures in the

topic of sustainability. Brazil is important due to its ownership and responsibility for (the

majority of) the amazon rainforest, and the United States due to its incredible influence as one of

the main influential super powers of the world. With my second half of the research—in which I

research the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency—I will be looking at how the

administered budget for the EPA differed throughout the years. I hope to find correlations

between budget size and different presidents. My main goal in this section however, is to learn

how each administration influences the EPA’s budget, and to what extent they do. Lastly,

I’d like to study possible correlations between political party, and EPA budget

appropriation.

Initially, when starting my research, I was unsure of where to find the information I

needed. To fulfill my research, I needed a database containing the administered budgets for each

year, spanning at least 2 decades ago, so I may draw conclusions about various administrations.

Unsure of where to find these numbers, I reached in contact with the EPA region 2 office,

located in New York City. Jennifer May-Reddy, an employee at the region 2 EPA branch, was

kind enough to answer my questions and provide me with the information I needed. Amongst the
information May-Reddy shared, was a list containing records of the federal enacted budget for

the EPA, along with the workforce number for a given year, dating back to 1970.

Dataset for the EPA’s budgeting data

dating back to 1970.

With this data, I sought to make initial analyses. I started by taking a side by side look at

various presidents’ terms, their political party, and the movement and shifts in enacted budgets

for the years under their administrations.

My initial superficial conclusion was a seen stagnancy in enacted budget from the years

1970 through 1976. In those 6 years the budget, starting at $1,003,984,000 oscillated up and

down, going as high as $2,377,266,000 in 1973, and as low as $518,348,000 the following year
of 1974. However, in 1977 we see a sudden jolt in enacted budget to nearly 3 billion dollars, and

all while seeing record high number in workforce, going from a mere 9,481 employees to 11,315

workers; higher than any year in the past 7 years. Furthermore, it is apparent that as the year goes

by, in 1978, the enacted budget exponentially swells to a colossal $5,498,635,000. Interestingly,

1978 was the first full year in which Jimmy Carter, a democrat was in office, following the 8-

year republican administrations of Richard Nixon, followed by Gerald Ford. Therefore, I was

interested in the possible correlation between Jimmy Carter’s left leaning administration

and this spike in EPA budget.

However, we can’t yet draw the conclusion that Jimmy Carter’s administration was the

reason for this sudden swell in EPA’s enacted budget. Therefore, to prove or disprove any

correlation, I chose to look at the GDP of the United States at the time in which we see these

shifts in enacted EPA budget. And as expected, we saw that from the years in which we saw the

greatest increase in enacted budget; 1977-1978, we also saw an equivalently high GDP of

14.44% in 1978; highest it’s been in 7 years. Therefore, we can’t fully attribute the increase in

the EPA’s enacted budget to there being a presidential shift in political parties. It could be that

the reason behind this increase is not an ideological one, but instead a logistical one. Or in other

words, it could be that the enacted budget simply grew because the GDP grew, and nothing else.

In this case, the growth of the EPA’s budget would still be attributed to Jimmy Carter’s

administration, albeit for different reasons than I was assuming: rather than it stemming from his

ideologies favoring environmentalism, it could simply be attributed to his ability to raise a

nation’s GDP.

To determine this, I chose to see how Jimmy Carter’s enacted EPA budget would size in

comparison to a republican administration in years that have similar GDPs. Therefore, I would
be able to see if the EPA budget swell was due to Carter’s ideologies or simply due to his ability

to raise the nation’s GDP. 1980 for example, the U.S had a GDP of 9.61%, which is slightly

lower 1976’s 9.79%. However, regardless of the similarity in GDPs, in 1980, the EPA under

Jimmy Carter’s administration had an enacted budget of nearly 5 billion dollars, while under

Gerald Ford’s administration it only received 700 million dollars. So perhaps, we see in this

example, that federal administrations can potentially have incredibly significant impacts on the

welfare of an agency such as the EPA due not only to a president’s ability to raise the GDP

(which in turn raises government agencies’ budgets) but also due to a president’s ideologies.

However, this is only one example, and there needs to be more examples to see just how

significant an administration’s ideology effects an agency such as the EPA’s budget.

Interestingly, we see this example being repeated with different administration shifts. For

example, in 1981, after years of increasing budget appropriations under Jimmy Carter’s

administration, we see it drastically drop under newly elected Ronald Reagan’s administration.

The drop was a near 2 billion-dollar drop from $4,669,415,000 to $3,030,669,000. This piece of

data is further substantiated when it is considered that the GDP shift from 1980 to 1981 was a

near stagnant shift of 9.61% to 9.89%. Effectively, much like the last example, this proves that

while this drop in enacted budget could’ve been a result of any other factor, it certainly wasn’t

due to a weakening economy. Instead, this drop in the EPA’s budget was most likely due to

Raegan’s weak environmental ideology.

Next, I would like to study the opposite of Ronald Raegan. I would like to study a

president that is famous for taking a progressive stance to environmentalism. In which case, there

are arguably few better presidents to study than ex-president Barack Obama. Barack Obama is

widely regarded as one of the most environmentally conscious of presidents. Therefore, if we

were to find any correlation between a president’s environmental ideologies and the budget that

is enacted to the EPA, it would have to be with Barack Obama’s administration. To do so, I once

again analyzed the budgeting history, but now under Obama’s administration. Interestingly, I

immediately find that during the Obama administration is when the EPA has received the highest

budget in the history of the United States. This occurred in 2010, when $10,297,864,000 was

enacted to the EPA, which is over 2 billion dollars more than the record up until that point. This

information however is incomplete without looking at other factors however, such as the state of

the economy at the time that this happened. During this gargantuan upsize in EPA budgeting, the

United States had just gotten out of a concerningly low GDP of .47% in 2009, and into a safer

4.19% in 2010. Perhaps, it can be argued that the sudden increase in the EPA’s budget at the

time can simply be a mirror of the fluctuations of the GDP at the time, and that it simply went up

with it. If that were the case, it would therefore also be inferred that this jolt in the EPA’s budget

isn’t due to the president’s environmental consciousness, but rather due to his ability of getting

the country’s economy out of a rut.

This is an important question to ask because it allows us to ponder the question of

whether the health of the EPA is in better hands of an administration that has a strong

environmental consciousness, or one that is simply focused on economic growth, or one with

both. This of course, is ultimately one of the fundamental questions I seek to answer with

my research.

To answer this question, I chose to take things in the opposite direction, and instead, I

chose to look at how the EPA was budgeted during years in which the GDP was in bloom, but

more importantly: under an administration of weak environmental consciousness. My goal is

to see whether solely experiencing peak GDP growth was sufficient to leave the EPA with a
healthy budget, or if an administration’s environmentally negligent ideology was enough to

hinder the EPA from receiving a healthy budget, despite being in times of growing GDP rates.

To do so, I firstly decided to look at the administration of Ronald Raegan, an ex-president

known for lots of things, but not for environmental consciousness. Specifically, I chose to

examine the year of 1983. In 1983 the U.S experienced a GDP growth of 11.52% under this

administration. This was preceded by a GDP of 3.71% in 1982, so surely the nation’s GDP rose

sharply. And therefore, if this situation strikes any similarities to the previous example, where

there was a GDP spike under Obama’s administration, we would see an equally bountiful EPA

budget. However, under president Ronald Raegan’s administration we hardly saw such

generosity being trickled into the EPA’s enacted budget, as the budget stayed at a meager

$3,688,688,000 (compared to the previous year’s $3,676,013,000.) This is in stark opposition to

ex-president Obama’s generous budget enactment following the 2010 GDP spike. Therefore, it

can maybe be inferred that we mustn’t only rely on a president’s ability to raise the nation out of

an economic rut to see healthy EPA budgets. Instead, there are other factors on hand. Perhaps, in

order to see a well-funded EPA, an administration must not only be capable of bringing the

country into bountiful economic states, but also in supplement to this, through the analysis of

data we can conclude that he/she must also have a respect for the EPA as an agency. Thus far

however, it has become quite evident that a president’s own ideologies regarding environmental

affairs has a significant impact on the amount of money going into it. However, research at this

point is still highly inconclusive.

Therefore, to solidify our idea about the numbers we’re looking at I chose to analyze

them further by comparing the budget the EPA received in a given year to the budget that

another agency or government entity received. Particularly, I will be looking at an agency that is
antagonistic to the EPA. Or in other words, an agency that environmentally negligent

administrations would consider more important. My aim is to see if environmentally negligent

administrations are underfunding the EPA due to lack of priority, or due to financial constraints.

Furthermore, I will be looking at where environmentally sympathetic administrations place the

EPA in their priorities, in comparison to other agencies.

Subsequently, I chose to study the U.S military expenditure side by side the EPA enacted

budgets. The reason I chose to study the U.S. military expenditures is because conservative

ideologues tend to hold more aggressive foreign policies. Therefore, I chose to find a dataset

containing the military expenditures in the U.S. (as GDP percentage) dating back to 1970.

DATASET containing the percentage

of the American GDP dedicated to
military expenditures. Dating back to
1970.
 As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of the analysis of this data is to compare the military

expenditure to the EPA budget of a given year. My goals in doing so are to find years in which

the EPA had dramatically lower budget appropriations, and to see if the military expenditure

mirrors the EPA’s budget drop. Furthermore, I hope this will determine if (in years where the

EPA is under budgeted) it is due to a lack of priority, or due to an overall weakened economy. I

hypothesize that if the military expenditure is high in one year, and in this same year the EPA’s

budget is compromised, that this signals that the EPA suffered from a lack of priority from the

administration in charge. The same goes for the other way around: a year where the EPA is

highly funded but the military expenditure is compromised might signal that the EPA was highly

prioritized by the administration in charge.

The years that I will be analyzing are the years: 1974, 1980, 1996, and lastly, 2011; all

years in which the EPA was enacted a significantly lower budget than the preceding year. In

1974, the U.S. was under the administration of Richard Nixon, a conservative. In 1974, the

EPA’s budget was 70% lower than 1973. My goal is to find out whether this was caused by a

negligence on Nixon’s administration and a lack of priority for the agency or if the country was

suffering times of hardship. Well, when we analyze the military expenditure, the numbers seem

to paint a picture of a struggling country. The expenditure for the military in 1974 and 1973 was

compromised just as much as the EPA’s budget, hovering at 5.5-5.3 percent of the GDP, while in

more prosperous years such as 1970 the expenditure was at a bountiful 7.7%. Therefore, in this

case the numbers seem to excuse Nixon’s heavy compromise to the EPA’s budget in 1974.

Moving on to 1980, we saw a enacted budget that was 15% lower than that of 1979. This

happened under the liberal administration of Jimmy Carter that went on from 1977-1981.

Interestingly, looking at the numbers of military expenditures throughout the years, much like
the previous example, in this case the military expenditure was compromised just as much as the

EPA’s budget. In 1980, the expenditure was compromised to a 4.5 percentage of the GDP,

compared to a bountiful 5.7% only 4 years prior. Therefore, with Carter’s administration, the

compromise in budget isn’t exclusive to the EPA, and instead seems to be widespread to other

agencies, explaining the drop in budget as stemming from a problem with the economy rather

than an issue of neglect/ mis-prioritization. Next, we see the 1996 drop in EPA’s budget at 11%

lower than 1995, under the Bill Clinton administration. In this case, we see the drop in EPA

budget being reflected on to the military expenditure, albeit not as dramatically as in the previous

examples, which makes sense given the not so dramatic compromise of 11% compared to the

other two examples. However, this compromise in EPA budget also seems to stem not from a

lack of priority to the agency but instead a symptom of a much larger problem, as the military

expenditure also seemed to be suffering. Lastly I would like to look at 2011, under president

Obama’s administration. This year suffered a drop of enacted budget of 18 percent. However,

this seems to be the only example that I have looked at in which the direction of the EPA’s

budget isn’t the same as the military expenditure. In other words, the military expenditure is

increasing in 2011 while the enacted EPA budget is dropping. The military expenditure in 2011

is hovering at a 4.5% while the expenditure was at nearly 3.5 only a few years ago. This shows

that perhaps Barack Obama’s administration despite being liberal, was negligent to the EPA not

necessarily due to a diminished economy but because of a lack of priority for the agency. This is

surprising considering that the Obama administration was one of the most vocal of

administrations concerning the environmental issues. However, my analysis is still incomplete.

Furthermore, I then decided to finalize my analysis of the dataset containing the EPA

budgets in one last analysis. Each year from 1970 to 2017 I calculated the EPA’s budget growth
rate, in relation to the previous year. For example, if the budget was $3,688,688,000 in 1983, and

$4,067,000,000$ in 1984 then the growth rate for 1984 would be $4,067,000,000 divided by

$3,688,688000, giving us a growth rate of 9 percent in 1984. Well, after doing this for every year

post 1970, I decided to add all of the numbers relating to the democratic administrations and all

the growth rates under the republican administrations and separate them. I them added both sets

together and drew the mean growth rate for each one. Therefore, I derived the average growth

rate for both the republican and democrat administrations from a sample size of 48 years. The

conclusions I drew were very interesting. For the democrat administrations the average growth

rate was 3%. The republican administrations’ growth rate was a surprising 4.5%. This means that

on average the republican administrations provided for a greater increase in EPA budget. This

very much surprised me, and contradicted my hypothesis, because the statistics are showing that

under the government of republican administrations, the EPA is receiving more money.

However, could this truly stem for a higher placed importance on the EPA by the republican

administrations? Or could it be the causation of other factors? To further investigate the data, I

decided to not stop the analysis there. I decided to add in a missing factor that I hope will answer

the question of which party prioritizes the EPA the most.

Given that the EPA budget is a small chunk out of the country’s treasury, it doesn’t make

sense to treat two EPA budget growth rate in two different years of two different GDPs in the

same manner. The tendency for an administration; regardless of how much they prioritize the

EPA, is to shrink the budget of the EPA along with other agencies in the emergence of a

shrinking GDP, and vice versa. To address this issue, I decided that for each fiscal year, I would

set out to create a proportion between the country’s GDP and the growth rate of the EPA budget.

(can be seen in visual dataset below under the “proportions” section.) Upon determining said
proportions, I subsequently followed the same steps as I did before for the averages I took

earlier: I added all the proportions relating to the republican parties and added all the ones

relating to the democratic party. Next, I divided each by the sample sizes of each party to yield a

mean proportion for each party. The proportion I speak of in this case, is a proportion between

GDP and enacted EPA budget. The higher proportions signify a greater prioritization of the EPA

by the administration in charge, whereas lower proportion, hints at a neglect of the EPA. And

interestingly, the democrat parties derived a proportion of 1.3447, while the republican parties

derived a proportion of .8. It is important to note that the higher the proportion the lower the

amount of neglect towards the EPA.

 It is important to note in this section of my research that the higher proportions speak to a

greater prioritization of the EPA by the administration in charge as they were more likely to

enact a higher portion of the economy to the EPA. A lower proportion however, speaks to a

neglect of the EPA, as the administration in charge chose to enact a relatively smaller proportion

of the economy to the EPA. The mix between a high EPA budget and a low GDP is evident of an

administration that is willing to still invest money in the agency despite low GDPs. Therefore, it

becomes evident that while democratic parties were in total less likely to administer as big of

budgets to the EPA than their republican counterparts, it was only because the GDP was on

average lower during the blue administrations. However, the democratic administrations had a

higher proportion of enacted EPA budget to the country’s GDP, ultimately meaning that

democratic administrations were more likely to prioritize the EPA than republicans. However, it

is still inevitable that despite the democratic administrations’ more environmentally conscious

intentions the republican ones were still responsible for largest gross budgets. This leads us to

the question of whether an administration that cares about environmental issues is enough. And

whether we must demand of the administrations in charge to not only care about the

environmental causes but to also be driven to raise the country’s GDP. As the GDP has been

proven to be an important determinant in the size of the EPA’s budget. Whereas caring, while

still important isn’t simply enough. However, despite republican parties showing a larger

gross increase in EPA budget, it is still unwise to merit this party as being the more

environmentally progressive. For there is much more to environmental sustainability than

the budget of the EPA. This is discussed in my next segment of my research.

EPA Research: Interviews

Next, I would like to analyze the EPA under a very specific timeframe: the last 2 years. I

choose to turn my attention to these years because that is when the administration in charge was

that of Donald Trump’s. Donald Trump is a known figure in environmental circles, known

mostly for his lack of environmental tact. Therefore, for this section of my research, instead of

using empirical data, I will instead use the anecdotes of EPA employees, because perhaps there

are facets of a problem that we are unable to see with only empirical data. I will therefore ask the

employees if they saw any noticeable changes within their agencies upon the admission of

president Trump into office.

Firstly, I chose to interview an EPA employee by the name of Suzane Skadowski.

Skadowski works at the Region 10 EPA, located in Seattle, Washington. Since I had already

found the data containing the enacted budgets dating back to 1970, I decided to ask her

something broader, albeit more anecdotal. My first question was “how do you think different

federal administrations impact the EPA, and the work that is carried out by the agency?” When I

asked her this, after having learned about the Brazilian government’s interactions with the

Brazilian EPA, I was expecting her to confirm my preconceived notions. My preconceived

notions being that some administrations will outwardly negatively influence the EPA; not just by

under-budgeting it. However, Suzane explained to me that the impacts that a given

administration will have on the EPA aren’t necessarily outwardly positive or negative, rather it’s

a matter of preference. For example, different administrations will prioritize different

environmental problems. Therefore, if an administration doesn’t place importance on the issue of

climate change, it is more likely that the action taken by said administration is not to set the EPA

aside altogether, but instead to change the EPA’s priorities. For example, the Trump
administration; one that is outwardly dismissive of climate change, won’t seek to remove power

from the EPA, as is the case with Brazil. In Brazil we see the Bolsonaro administration actively

trying to lessen Ministry of Environmental Affair’s power by merging it to the antagonistic

Ministry of Agriculture. However, Skadowski hasn’t seen the same antagonistic actions being

taken against the EPA in the division she works in. Skadowski says that an administration that is

negligent of climate change such as Trump’s won’t so much as remove power from the EPA.

What they will do however, is as I mentioned earlier, is change the priorities of the EPA through

the appointment of the new Head of the EPA. Under the Obama administration for example, the

importance on climate change was more emphasized. Therefore, the EPA at the time was more

focused on climate change and wetland protection and restoration. Eventually when the Trump

administration was brought to power the shift was taken from climate change, to a new shift to

superfund sites. Superfund sites are sites in which there was once a toxic waste disposal. And

where the EPA derives the money to clean it up by retrieving the money from the corporation

responsible for the spill.

However, I believe that it can still be argued that even though the EPA isn’t being

outwardly neglected as an agency under different administrations, it can still be handicapped by

certain administrations such as the current administration of president Trump. The reason being

that the EPA’s function, which is that of an agency dedicated to solving the most important

environmental issues, can be handicapped by different such administrations. As the EPA’s

direction in the work it does is completely dictated by the administration in charge. Most

environmental scientists would argue that while superfund cleanup is important, it is highly

unwise and neglectful to remove the EPA’s focus from climate change as is being done at the

moment under Trump.

 In short, according to Skadowski, the American administrations aren’t quite as outward

about removing influence from the EPA altogether, and are instead more likely to act on their

interests with more subtlety. However, when it comes to financial influence, she agreed that the

administration in charge certainly has an effect on the amount of federal money that is budgeted

towards the EPA. However, it still is a far stretch from the type of negligence we see with the

Brazilian administration in charge currently.

Therefore, I asked Skadowski how she thinks the EPA is affected when the agency is

facing a year of low budget. Her response was actually very similar to that of the employee at the

Brazilian EPA. Skadowski explained to me that when the EPA is under budgeted and employees

begin to retire, there is insufficient money to hire new employees. Therefore, the amount of

people available on staff to carry out the work is lessened and thus is the agency’s ability to

perform their work.

Conclusion

In conclusion there are an incredible array of factors that contribute to an environmental

agency’s well being, both in Brazil and the United States. We have also seen that the EPA

receives higher or lesser budgets depending on two things: the prioritization of the EPA by the

administration in charge and the GDP of the country. An agency such as the EPA isn’t solely

benefitted by an administration that has legitimate interest in environmental affairs, as we have

seen that any of that is insignificant given the GDP is suboptimal. A suboptimal GDP will limit

the ceiling in which an administration can administer to the EPA. Therefore, when we look for

the ideal administration in regards to its capability to create a healthy, well-funded EPA, we must
seek one that not only has a priority on environmental affairs but also one that is able to create a

growing GDP that can foster a well funded EPA.

However critical it may be that an environmental agency receives adequate funding, it is

certainly not the only priority when trying to make way for an effective environmental agency.

The budget that an environmental agency receives is the baseline for a healthy agency. However,

if under the wrong administration, even a well-funded agency such as the EPA may be

ineffective at carrying out its work to the fullest potential. As we saw from the interviews with

EPA employees, the agency is largely under the control of the administration. The administration

in charge, being the one responsible for the appointment of the head of the EPA, is fully capable

of deciding the issues that the agency will tackle. Therefore, even a well-funded EPA might fully

ignore the issue of Climate Change to instead set its gears towards superfund cleanups.

However, in the United States it became clear that the influence the administration has is

much subtler and benign than in Brazil. In our comparison of how Brazilian administrations deal

with their environmental agencies to how American administrations deal with the EPA it

becomes clear that in Brazil the power exerted by the administrations is more unchecked. While

in the United States the administration only goes as far as to influence the budget and direction

of the EPA, in Brazil the administrations sometimes hold more aggressive relations with their

environmental groups. For example, we must go back to the interview with Klefasz, where he

spoke about the intentions the current administration of Jair Bolsonaro has of merging the

ministry of environmental affairs with the ministry of agriculture, to ultimately remove the

ministry of environmental affair’s power over the ministry of agriculture.

However, what both Brazil and the United States have in common is that in one way or

another, the administration has a large effect on the environment. Whether this influence is
exerted through the ability to increase or decrease the budget of environmental agencies, by

shifting the focus of environmental agencies, or even by removing the agencies’ ability to do

such important tasks as feeding rescue wildlife; as is the case in Brazil. Either way, this influence

is undeniable, and the power that the ruling administrations have is to be respected. However, if

this research speaks on anything, it’s that the criteria for choosing an administration worthy of

said responsibility isn’t as simple as most would assume. For example, most believe that a

presidential candidate that simply holds a pro-environmental rhetoric, is sufficiently adequate for

the task of maintaining the environmental health of the country. However, we have seen that it

certainly isn’t quite as simple as that. Presidents such as Barack Obama, despite showing

environmentally progressive ideals, and despite enacting relatively high proportions of the

country’s economy to the EPA, still didn’t generate large enough of a GDP to fund the EPA as

high as it could’ve been. And on the other hand, we mustn’t allow presidential candidates with

an anti-environmental rhetoric to enter presidency despite their ability to create a high GDP.

Presidents like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil have shown very clearly that an administration with an

environmentally negligent policy frame will severely damage the environment and ecosystems of

the nation.
WORKS CITED:

1. US GDP Growth Rate by Year. (n.d.). Retrieved December 16, 2018, from

http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-growth-rate/table/by-year

2. Military expenditure (% of GDP). Retrieved December 16, 2018, from

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=US

3. “EPA's Budget and Spending.” EPA.GOV, Environmental Protection Agency, 9 July

2018, www.epa.gov/planandbudget/budget.