The Environment Is in Trump’s Crosshairs. We Need to Fight Back.

The Environment Is in Trump’s Crosshairs. We Need to Fight Back.

The Environment Is in Trump’s Crosshairs. We Need to Fight Back.

This isn’t scattershot; it is a well-planned effort to destroy environmental regulations and investments built up over decades.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

Don’t get distracted by Trump’s ludicrous claim that he’s against energy-efficient light bulbs because they make him look orange. That may or may not be the case—but it’s certainly not the main reason his administration is moving full throttle to dismantle decades of environmental regulations, any more than his opposition to wind power has to do with his loony notion that windmills cause cancer.

Over the past weeks, the administration, in league with Big Oil and other fossil fuel industries, has gone full-bore in its efforts to roll back half a century of environmental regulations. Pay attention, America. This isn’t scattershot; it is a concerted, well-planned effort to neutralize environmental regulations and investments built up over decades.

A few examples: In late August, the administration announced plans to end restrictions on methane emissions, despite the fact that methane is a powerful contributor to global warming. That month it also moved to allow logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. And last week it eradicated Obama-era regulations, building on the 1972 Clean Water Act, that limited industry’s ability to use polluting chemicals near waterways. It also moved to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling by year’s end.

Lest anyone doubt how retrograde this moment is, GOP senators have begun floating proposals not only to eliminate the federal tax credits that come with purchasing electric vehicles, but even to subject them to a road-usage tax in lieu of the gasoline taxes that owners of such cars don’t pay. The latter measure has already been successfully pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which coordinates conservative policy proposals for state governments, in more than two dozen states in recent years. Implemented federally, these proposals would stifle the development of the still-fragile, and urgently needed, electric vehicle market.

All of this was capped by the September revelation that the Trump administration may be preparing to withdraw the long-standing waivers allowing California to set its own tailgate-emissions and fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles; 13 other states (14, if Colorado, which recently voted to join the compact, is counted) use California’s standards rather than the lower federal ones. The waiver withdrawal deliberately sabotages states’ ability to curtail global warming.

California, is, of course, fighting back with increasingly radical countermeasures. Last week, legislators passed SB1, intended to preserve, in legislative amber, vital federal environmental and labor regulations in the shape that they existed on the last day of Obama’s presidency. The provisions of SB1 would have remained in place through a possible second Trump term, expiring the day after the 2025 presidential inauguration.

At the urging of Senator Dianne Feinstein and Central Valley water interests, however, who fear it would break apart a delicate set of water agreements brokered at the federal level, Governor Gavin Newsom has indicated that he will veto the measure. But other imaginative and powerful policy measures will almost certainly follow. Stay focused; pay attention; filter out the noise—the environmental battle has truly been joined. It’s time to take sides.

Listen to Abramsky on the Start Making Sense podcast.

Thank you for reading The Nation!

We hope you enjoyed the story you just read, just one of the many incisive, deeply-reported articles we publish daily. Now more than ever, we need fearless journalism that shifts the needle on important issues, uncovers malfeasance and corruption, and uplifts voices and perspectives that often go unheard in mainstream media.

Throughout this critical election year and a time of media austerity and renewed campus activism and rising labor organizing, independent journalism that gets to the heart of the matter is more critical than ever before. Donate right now and help us hold the powerful accountable, shine a light on issues that would otherwise be swept under the rug, and build a more just and equitable future.

For nearly 160 years, The Nation has stood for truth, justice, and moral clarity. As a reader-supported publication, we are not beholden to the whims of advertisers or a corporate owner. But it does take financial resources to report on stories that may take weeks or months to properly investigate, thoroughly edit and fact-check articles, and get our stories into the hands of readers.

Donate today and stand with us for a better future. Thank you for being a supporter of independent journalism.

Thank you for your generosity.

Ad Policy
x