Isn't the EPA under the leadership of the current administration? So by extension, would the EPA policies be the execution of the administrations play calling?
If the EPA were non-governmental, then sure, I might agree.
If the EPA were non-governmental, then sure, I might agree.
The white house cannot say "fire person X" who works for the EPA but was not nominated, because there is (supposed to be) a wall between the political appointees, who must be confirmed by the Senate, and the professional appointees, who are supposed to be protected by a web of laws and whistleblower protections.
So while many people think that the President is the "head" of the administration and can just order it to do whatever he wants, that's not how it's supposed to work. The set of things the EPA is supposed to be doing is set by legislation and the manner in which it does things is also subject to oversight. That doesn't actually stop the politicization of these agencies -- e.g. the CDC studying racism as a public health crisis or gun crime as a disease, or having the IRS investigate conservative groups, etc. The boundary of this tug of war in which the President tries to order an agency to do X and his opponents sue him saying "you can't do this" is exactly the issue of lawfare and the constitutionality of various executive orders. Many such attempts at directing Federal agencies fail or are ruled unconstitutional, but the overall effects of appointing ideologues to leadership positions is felt in things like the newspeak so common now in public announcements.
Structurally, the EPA is an agency of the Executive Branch (aka the White House, POTUS, etc.). Organizationally the EPA answers only to Congress (aka the Legislative Branch) and the Supreme Court (aka the Judiciary Branch).[1]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_Un...
EPA answers to SCOTUS because the courts decide how laws are understood and executed.
EPA gives the finger to the White House because they are an independent agency despite being part of the Executive Branch.
Those interests are separate from PR for politicians/parties, and sometimes incompatible, like perhaps in this case.
These agencies are the real power structures in the country. No matter who is elected by the people, agencies get to enact policies that are in effect laws being created by people that are not elected.
However, these institutions maintain the power of the ruling class by virtue of being indirectly responding to “the science” elite universities arbitrarily choose to fund by virtue of wealthy donors and is normalized in prestigious journals so good natured folk like yourself not only accept it but justify it. This is how “current things” take hold.
You can’t really blame democrats or republicans for this as they both use it to enter an h power outside of democratic methods. Democrats have better utilized them to be sure but they’re 2 sides of the same coin minus some outliers here and there.