The Trump administration is "hamstringing scientists and their ability to do their work" to combat climate change, former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman told CNN’s “New Day” on Wednesday.
Whitman, who served during the George W. Bush administration, said what worries her most about the Trump administration's environmental policy is the “erosion of trust in science."
She said “they are trying to create confusion in science by not allowing pure science. They are replacing people on the Science Advisory Board with people from industry.”
Whitman emphasized that this administration only talks about the economics of an issue, but the "EPA is about protecting public health and the environment.”
The remarks from Whitman came a day after she and three other former EPA administrators denounced the agency's direction under President Donald Trump at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.
“Today, as never before, the mission of EPA is being seriously undermined by the very people who have been entrusted with carrying that mission out," she said at the hearing.
Asked on CNN what actions by the administration compelled her to testify, Whitman said: "Well, it's been this just consistent roll back of regulations without a seeming analysis of why this particular regulation is no longer relevant, and particularly when it comes to climate change, it's the scrubbing of any mention of climate change, it's the restriction of the scientists, their ability to do their work, to say this could be a problem and here is what we need to watch."