Project 2025 adviser takes the reins at EPA region including Texas

  

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Scott Mason IV will lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s region covering some of the country’s hot spots for oil and gas production and industrial pollution, including Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, the Gulf Coast and the Permian Basin.

Mason advised the author of the EPA chapter in Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for remaking the agency in sync with industry priorities.

“Regional Administrator Mason believes that every American should have access to clean air, land, and water,” said Region 6 spokesperson Jennah Durant. “And he will ensure that EPA Region 6 is fulfilling its mission to protect human health and the environment in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and 66 Tribal Nations.”

But for environmentalists, his appointment raises alarm bells for environmental justice efforts in the region. Mason comes to the role after serving as the deputy secretary of energy of Oklahoma, his home state. Most of his career has been in Oklahoma politics and higher education. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Durant did not respond directly to whether Mason will work to implement Project 2025 recommendations.

Regional office changes hands

While much environmental regulation is delegated to the states, EPA regional offices administer programs under federal jurisdiction. The 10 regional offices are also closely involved in monitoring new permitting programs that have been handed off to state regulators.

Under the Biden administration, the regional offices played an active role in deploying funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and other federal programs and made environmental justice a priority, targeting funding on low-income areas and communities of color disproportionately harmed by climate change and pollution.

Jen Duggan, executive director of the nonprofit watchdog Environmental Integrity Project, said that regional offices are “where the rubber meets the road.”

“The Regional Administrator is responsible for implementing EPA programs and providing critical oversight of state environmental agencies,” she said. “Without strong leadership in these roles, people are more at risk of being exposed to dangerous air and water pollution.”

At Region 6, Mason replaces Earthea Nance, a civil engineer and former Texas Southern University professor with decades of experience in disaster recovery. Nance used her role to shine a light on persistent pollution problems in the region and promote the Biden administration’s climate and environmental justice programs.

She criss-crossed the vast region, from Dallas to observe fracking emissions, to El Paso to promote electric school buses, to Tulsa to visit urban farms. Nance posted on LinkedIn in January expressing thanks to the regional staff.

“Serving as Regional Administrator for EPA Region 6 has been the experience of a lifetime,” she wrote. “I want to express my deep gratitude to the 772 civil servants in Region 6 who work with integrity and professionalism to ensure clean air, land, and water.”

Those civil servants may now be fearing for their jobs, as layoffs loom at the agency. The New York Times has reported that the Trump administration has notified more than 1,100 EPA employees that they could be fired immediately, and late Thursday, the EPA press office said that 168 agency employees working in environmental justice programs had been placed on administrative leave.

Mason grew up in rural Cordell, Oklahoma, and studied political science at the University of Oklahoma, according to a local news report. He told News 9 in Oklahoma City in 2018 that meeting George H. W. Bush at a young age inspired him to enter politics.

Mason served as EPA director for the American Indian Environmental Office during the first Trump administration. In his home state, he led federal programs for the University of Oklahoma and served on the staff of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin.

“Regional Administrator Mason is committed to working hard each and every day to make a difference in the lives of the people we serve by implementing the President’s agenda and Administrator Zeldin’s ‘Powering the Great American Comeback’ Initiative,” Durant said.

Mason tapped for Project 2025

Mason maintained a relatively low-profile throughout the first Trump administration and during his subsequent years in Oklahoma. But as the 2024 presidential race neared, Mandy M. Gunasekara, EPA chief of staff in the first Trump administration, tapped him to help with the EPA chapter of Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation and former Trump staffers authored the playbook for conservative governance, which Trump disavowed during the campaign but has seemingly embraced since taking office on Jan. 20.

Gunasekara thanked Mason in the EPA chapter, though Mason has not spoken publicly about his role. The new Trump EPA, led by Lee Zeldin, has not wasted time instituting changes at the agency.

The document recommends eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. The EPA chapter also advises limiting which sectors have to report their greenhouse gas emissions and eliminating the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance. The playbook also calls for a plan to relocate EPA regional offices “so that they are more accessible to the areas they serve and deliver cost savings to the American people.”

Environmental justice imperiled

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Matthew Tejada, who was previously the EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for environmental justice, warned in a November 2024 blog post that if Project 2025 was implemented, environmental justice communities “are set to feel that loss far more deeply and immediately than anyone else.”

Region 6 encompasses the heart of the U.S. petrochemical industry, from the oilfields of the Permian Basin spanning New Mexico and Texas, to the liquified natural gas buildout on the Texas and Louisiana coast. Black, Latino and Indigenous communities throughout the region have lived with the associated pollution.

While oil and gas production reached record highs during the Biden administration, the EPA sought to remedy these harms. The Biden administration invested in communities that have historically been overburdened by pollution, stipulating through its so-called Justice40 initiative — now rescinded by Trump — that 40% of spending in numerous federal programs go to low-income communities and communities of color.

The Biden EPA worked closely with the New Mexico Environment Department to track unauthorized methane emissions and penalize companies for polluting in the Permian Basin. The EPA and NMED Under Secretary James Kenney partnered on several investigations that resulted in multi-million dollar consent decrees with oil and gas companies.

“New Mexico remains committed to addressing ozone emissions in the Permian Basin and across our state,” said NMED spokesperson Drew Goretzka. “We will exercise our permitting and enforcement authorities.”

Goretzka said NMED Secretary Kenney has known Regional Administrator Mason for several years and looked forward to working with him. “To that end, the two have already spoken and are planning future discussions,” he said.

Platforms like the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, an online application used to identify environmentally disadvantaged communities, have already been removed from the agency’s website. The end of such initiatives will directly impact communities throughout the region, environmental activists said.

“These corporations have long profited at the expense of the people living in these neighborhoods, and an administration that does not believe in environmental justice could make an already dangerous situation worse by taking the environmental cop off the beat,” EIP’s Duggan said. “EPA is the backstop when states fail to do their job to protect clean air and clean water.”

Bipartisan backing for orphan wells

In other areas, regional administrator Mason may face pressure from industry representatives and Republican politicians to preserve Biden-era programs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided unprecedented funds for plugging orphan oil and gas wells around the country. The EPA also provided funding to reduce methane emissions from marginal oil and gas wells. Republican-led states like Oklahoma and Texas have been some of the biggest beneficiaries.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates oil and gas in the state, reported in January that the state had plugged 1,110 wells to date with federal funds from the infrastructure act at a total cost of $23.8 million. The report said at least 20,000 abandoned wells remain statewide.

The commission then warned on Jan. 28 that the well plugging program “faced an uncertain future” after the Office of Management and Budget issued a pause on federal grants and loans. The commission noted it was expecting a $102 million dollar grant for well plugging when the pause went into effect.

“The agency is actively working to position itself to be in the best possible position to quickly move forward with implementation of its program to plug the thousands of identified orphaned wells in our state,” the statement read.