Monday, July 22, 2024

Trump's past actions and future plans regarding the environment


As some of you may be aware, I followed Trump's actions regarding the environment from the first day that he was in office - when he used his executive order to approve the DAPL pipeline to go through the Missouri River. Since then he and his Republican cabinet appointees (rich donors and fossil fuel execs) enacted over 100 actions that weakened environmental protections including: weakening the Air Pollution Policy; w
eakening the fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and light trucks; eliminating the methane emissions standards for oil and gas facilities; weakening the rule meant to reduce air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas; rescinding water pollution regulations for fracking on federal and Indian lands; weakening the National Environmental Policy Act (one of the country’s most significant environmental laws); ending the automatic application of full protections for ‘threatened’ plants and animals (the classification one step below ‘endangered’ in the Endangered Species Act); and scaling back pollution protections for certain tributaries and wetlands that were regulated under the Clean Water Act.


See the list of over 100 actions against the environment here: 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

If Trump is re-elected, he will do even more damage. Here are the plans if Trump gets in office. 

TRUMP'S PROJECT 2025 ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Gen Z is more likely to consider climate change a legislative priority than past generations. Young Americans overwhelmingly want to see their government take action to protect the environment and mitigate the potential impact of climate change. Instead of taking this action, Project 2025 proposes rollbacks of environmental protections and aims to undo Biden’s pro-climate actions.
According to Project 2025, an incoming conservative administration would:
-Rescind all climate policies from its foreign aid programs
-Cease collaborating with and funding progressive foundations, corporations, international institutions, and NGOs that advocate on behalf of climate fanaticism
-Repeal the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)
-End the EPA’s focus on climate change and green subsidies
-Eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
-Eliminate the Clean Energy Corps by revoking funding and eliminating all positions and personnel hired under the program
-Direct the Department of Energy to “end the Biden Administration’s unprovoked war on fossil fuels, restore America’s energy independence, oppose eyesore windmills built at taxpayer expense, and respect the right of Americans to buy and drive cars of their own choosing” (page 286)
-Stop all federal grants to environmental advocacy groups
-Approve the 2020 Willow EIS, the largest pending oil and gas projection in the United States in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and expand approval from three to five drilling pads
-Withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement
-Reduce proposed fuel economy levels
-Rollback Biden’s executive orders on climate and energy, and reinstated the Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda, which remove a series of environmental protections, including:
SO 3348: Concerning the Federal Coal Moratorium
SO 3349: American Energy Independence
SO 3350: America-First Offshore Energy Strategy
SO 3351: Strengthening the Department of the Interior’s Energy Portfolio
SO 3352: National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska;
SO 3354: Supporting and Improving the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Program and Federal Solid Mineral Leasing Program;
SO 3355: Streamlining National Environmental Policy Reviews and Implementation of Executive Order 13807, “Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects”
SO 3358: Executive Committee for Expedited Permitting
SO 3360: Rescinding Authorities Inconsistent with Secretary’s Order 3349, “American Energy Independence;”
SO 3380: Public Notice of the Costs Associated with Developing Department of the Interior Publications and Similar Documents;
SO 3385: Enforcement Priorities; and
SO 3389: Coordinating and Clarifying National Historic Preservation Act Section GEN Z’S GUIDE TO PROJECT 2025 from Voters of Tomorrow Please, share this blog with your environmentally conscious friends.