In the US we call bribery "lobbying" and it is totally legal. Imagine being in that position and knowing you could get a really cushy position on some board and collect a nice paycheck to take care of yourself and your family after doing your time at the EPA.
In reality lobbying is not nearly as cynical as that and I have no doubts the majority of lobbyists truly believe their bullshit. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
This effect has actually been well studied (see studies on "cultural cognition")
In the end its a larger systemic issue and you can't ever really find a specific individual to blame it on. I'd love it if all we had to do was fire the right person. But the the reality is that we need much larger structural changes to prevent stuff like this form happening
The government has a lot of stakeholders to manage.
If we declare the methods that keep the Midwest alive as the breadbasket of the world and the deserts of California and Arizona as our greenhouses as catastrophes, what’s next?
New Jersey isn’t going to be the garden state again. My grandfather used to buy tomatoes in Paramus from a farm cooperative, now a Westfield mall.
Meat is similar. You don’t have to use gross feedlots and unsustainable husbandry methods. But… distributed meatpacking was unionized and hard to consolidate.
In the long run, we’ll have hard times and small scale gardens for vegetables, etc will come back. Where I live in upstate NY, agriculture is absolutely devastated - like 70% of small farmers are basically out of business in a few years if not already. But Amish families are scooping up property in some areas and make a lot of money on farming with non-conventional methods.
How much of the EPA is political appointees and how much is career professionals? How are the career professionals insulated from politics? Who has what power?
I think you answered that question yourself. They may not be "bribed" directly, but they are put under the direct influence of politicians who can be bought through campaign contributions and lobbying.
In reality lobbying is not nearly as cynical as that and I have no doubts the majority of lobbyists truly believe their bullshit. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
This effect has actually been well studied (see studies on "cultural cognition")
In the end its a larger systemic issue and you can't ever really find a specific individual to blame it on. I'd love it if all we had to do was fire the right person. But the the reality is that we need much larger structural changes to prevent stuff like this form happening