The Legacy of the Trump Presidency
Roscommon/Crawford Chapter
What Will
Trump’s Most Profound Legacy Be? Possibly Climate Damage
(Editor’s note – The New York Times has two
investigative journalists who regularly report on climate change topics. This
blog was prepared using two of their most recent offerings. Note that the
quoted text portions of this blog are verbatim excerpts from their recently
published reports.)
“WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will use
the next four years to try to restore the environmental policies that his
predecessor has methodically blown up, but the damage done by the greenhouse
gas pollution unleashed by President Trump’s rollbacks may prove to be one of
the most profound legacies of his single term.”
“Most of Mr. Trump’s environmental policies, which erased or
loosened nearly 100 rules and regulations on pollution of the air, water and
atmosphere, can be reversed, though not immediately. Additionally, pollutants
like industrial soot and chemicals can have lasting health effects.”
The Trump administration has taken action on most of its
major environmental priorities, including new rules that loosen caps on carbon
pollution from power plants and weaken the federal government’s authority to
control the dumping of contaminants or dredging of wetlands and smaller
streams.
It has blocked stricter federal gas-mileage standards from
taking effect — undercutting President Obama’s most significant climate policy
— and revoked California’s right to set its own, tougher air-quality standards.
It has sought to narrow the federal government’s authority to set pollution
limits under the Clean Air Act, a move that could constrain future administrations
for decades.
Here are some of the other major changes: The administration
has allowed more pollution, drilling and logging in formerly protected areas
while weakening protections for wildlife.
It has made fundamental changes to the National Environmental
Policy Act, a bedrock law that has existed for five decades to accelerate
approvals for pipelines, highway construction and other major projects despite
their environmental risks.
At Trump’s direction, his administrators have rolled-back 37
policies for safety and environmental damage associated with drilling for
fossil fuels. They have provoked an easing of requirements on power plants that
leak waste into waterways, scaled back oversight of mine safety, approved
seismic drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge, and perhaps most significantly, allowed
an “opening more than 9.3 million acres to logging in Alaska’s vast Tongass
National Forest, one of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforests. This
forest boasts the highest density of brown bears in North America, and its
trees — some of which are 1,000 years old — absorb more carbon than any other
forest in the United States.”
Various environmental groups have challenged these actions
in court. Some 89 rollbacks have faced lawsuits. At this point, the Trump
administration has received 17 court rulings in favor of their changes and 37 reversals
against their rule changes that result in a lessening or outright elimination
of environmental protections. One egregious example of a recent loss occurred
when The EPA was forced to bar dental offices from flushing mercury into sewers
after the Trump Administration was sued for delaying implementation of this
2016 rule.
Trump appointees at the EPA, the Interior Department and
other agencies have followed a simple playbook: Speed up the administrative
process to suspend or overhaul environmental rules and replace them before
January 2021. Even as the administration has suffered dozens of court losses,
Trump has managed to win even when losing, by preventing some Obama-era rules
from taking effect or by delaying compliance dates for industry adherence to
earlier requirements.
By doing so, the Trump White House also has made it harder
for the next Democratic administration to quickly restore previous efforts to
drive down emissions linked to global warming, shift to cleaner forms of energy
and prevent drilling on sensitive public lands. While Democratic presidential
nominee Joe Biden has promised bold action on climate and a renewed focus on
environmental justice, much of his first term could be spent trying to
reestablish safeguards put in place during his years as vice-president under
Barack Obama.
Early on, the Trump administration employed a tactic that
Democrats and Republicans had used in the past: It temporarily froze
regulations that had not yet gone into effect. But then it took it one step
further, delaying the dates by which companies would have to comply with some
rules that were already in effect.
Federal judges have repeatedly ruled that the administration
failed to follow the Administrative Procedure Act, which sets requirements for
notice and public comment regarding proposed rules. That forced Trump officials
to finalize at least a dozen Obama-era rules they opposed. Environmentalists
and Democratic attorneys general have systematically challenged key rollbacks,
winning 37 of 54 recent decisions, according to an analysis by the Washington Post.
Several of these cases remain under appeal.
In several instances, the Trump administration’s push to suspend
Obama administration rules kept them from taking effect. For example, the Obama
administration restricted the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from
oil and gas wells. Under Trump, the Bureau of Land Management told companies
they did not need to meet those standards, a move that the U.S. District Court
in the Northern District of California ruled was illegal. The BLM wrote a new
methane rule, but the same court found it flawed and vacated it nearly 2½ years
later. The U.S. District Court in Wyoming this month struck down the original
Obama-era rule. All the while, oil and gas companies have been allowed to
release methane, doing further damage to our atmosphere.
Untangling this morass of environmental issues will be a
tall order for the Biden Administration but our very future depends on it. Look
for more on the Biden policy in a future blog.
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