What Trump is Doing to the Environment

Trump’s Impact on Environment and Science

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/

Trump promised to "Make America Great Again".  Today, the economy is better and Trump is getting much of the credit.  But at what cost?  Collusion with the Russians?  Dividing the American people?  How about at the cost of the environment and some of America's greatest treasures?  Allowing the expoloitation of our national parks by opening them to drilling was just the start!

National Geographic is keeping a running list, and the following is just since January 2018!:

8/8/2018 – Trump announces plan to lower emissions standards

7/23/2018 – Trump’s administration downsizing national parks (monuments), deleting/redacting evidence of monuments benefits (financially and environmentally).

7/19/2017 – Trump officials propose rollbacks of Endangered Species Act rules.  It is believed the proposed changes would result in a very large number of extinctions that would otherwise be prevented.  “If they’re finalized now, Zinke will go down in history as the extinction secretary.”

7/5/2018 – EPA administrator Scott Pruitt resigns (this is a good thing).  Aside from the multitude of scandals surrounding Pruitt, he is responsible for significant changes to US environmental policy:

Halted an Obama error request that fossil-fuel producers track methane emissions

Overruled IPA scientists’ plea to ban chlorpyrifos (an insecticide)

Reported sought to delay a CDC report on PFAS’ (a water contaminant) toxicity

Stalled the Clean Power Plan, an effort regulate power-plant emissions

Tried to weaken 2022-2025 car fuel; economy standards

Left the Paris climate accords, leaving us isolated on what scientists widely agree is an environmental crisis

Two Harvard University researchers argue that the Trump administration's environmental policies, as championed by Pruitt, could kill an additional 80,000 people per decade when compared to prior policy

Andrew Wheeler – a former coal lobbyist is acting EPA administrator and continues Pruitt’s policies.

5/9/2018 – Cuts NASA climate monitoring program, so we can turn a blind eye toward the climate, global warming, etc.  The program measured emissions produced across the globe.

4/2/2018 – proposed a rule change that would significantly lower the protections given threatened species

3/16/2018 – FEMA strikes the term “climate change” from strategic plan, effectively removing “climate change” as a possible catastrophic disaster.  So, now we won’t make preparations for the effects of climate change.

2/12/2018 – Trump proposed sweeping rollbacks to US programs designed to study and mitigate the effects of climate change, as well as cuts to research on renewable energy

1/25/2018 – EPA loosens regulations on toxic air pollution.  This allows companies to continue emitting hazardous air pollutants at higher levels

1/15/2018 – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke refuses to meet with National Park System Advisory Board.  The board was chartered by Congress in 1935 to advise the park system and the Secretary of the Interior.  It’s members are unpaid.

1/10/2018 – US government websites have been systematically altered to cut mentions of climate change.  The EPA, especially, has removed or reduces web content about climate change.