Permanent capture: What a decades-old scandal at the EPA tell us about power in Washington today

The tenure of former President Ronald Reagan’s first Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Anne Gorsuch Burford, ended with firings, resignations from dozens of political appointees, and, for one deputy administrator, a prison sentence.

The scandal paved the way for the return of William Ruckelshaus, who had been the very first EPA administrator under former President Richard Nixon, and was admired by scientists and lawmakers alike.

This leadership change was what many in Washington wanted. A non-profit, Save EPA, worked with staffers within the agency to put political pressure on the White House and redirect the agency. When Reagan appointed someone new to lead the EPA, many people who worked there were thrilled. They even made T-shirts.

But after all of that, how do we ensure a system that effectively regulates industry? In the fifth and final episode of Captured, we explore whether the bureaucrats and government workers who plotted and leaked documents to “save the EPA” ultimately got what they wanted. We look at the costs to the individuals who came to represent an ideology. And we ask what conditions the EPA needs to be effective today.

Full episode transcript

Scott Tong: It’s March, 1983. The vultures are circling around EPA administrator Anne Burford, formerly Anne Gorsuch.

(Soundbite from archival news: The steady drip, drip of stories about the troubled Environmental Protection Agency continued unabated today … )

Tong: One of Anne’s top deputies, Rita Lavelle, has just been fired during a scandal over industry ties. But there’s direct pressure on Anne herself. The EPA administrator has been held in contempt of Congress. You know, that big mark of shame in Washington? And now, her political friends on the bus throw her under it. First, Ronald Reagan’s Department of Justice tells Anne it doesn’t have her back.

(Soundbite from archival news: Angered over a Justice Department announcement that it would no longer represent her before Congress, she lashed out through aides. She claimed she had been