Former acting EPA air chief Anne Idsal Austin is a member of the Trump transition landing team at the agency — and may be leading it, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the transition.
The Texas lawyer, who also served as a regional EPA administrator early in President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, is one of several landing team member names that have been shared with EPA career staff, said the people briefed on the agency’s transition. There’s less clarity about whether she is leading the team charged with readying EPA for Trump’s second term, which begins Jan. 20.
Austin’s name has been circulated for months now as a likely transition team member. The New York Times reported it in November — though the same article said former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler was a member of the transition team. Wheeler has told POLITICO'S E&E News that he has no formal role.
Two people said they'd been told that Austin’s name appears on a planning document for the transition. Austin spent a year and a half as provisional head of the Office of Air and Radiation before leaving in 2021.
Landing teams are small groups of political staff deployed to agencies during a presidential transition to meet with career staff ahead of the inauguration. Trump’s 2024 effort is running behind the usual schedule and is shrouded in mystery.
President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama named their full EPA transition teams in the weeks after their respective elections. And in 2016, Trump named his EPA transition team lead — Myron Ebell, an outspoken critic of climate science — before the election, in September.
But now, with only 18 days to go until Trump is sworn back into office, the president-elect's EPA team is a closely guarded secret.
The Trump transition team told E&E News it is sharing personnel information with the Biden White House under an agreement signed in late November.
"[T]he White House is receiving the names of those serving on landing teams. The landing team members are connecting with their counterparts at the departments and agencies,” said Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition.
EPA told E&E News that the agency “has begun engaging with the President-elect’s Agency Review Team following the standard transition process” outlined in the November agreement.
Kevin Bogardus contributed to this report.
