Houston Chronicle Op-Ed: Burying Our Head in Sand on Climate Change No Longer an Option
This op-ed originally ran in the Houston Chronicle.
Every day during the Hurricane Harvey disaster, our hearts would sink as we kept hearing the word "unprecedented" again and again. Harvey wasn't supposed to strengthen so fast; it shouldn't have stalled where it did. Every day as we hoped the worst was over, Harvey would pummel us even harder.
Everything was outside the norm, breaking all records. Over 50 inches of rain. Houston's "wettest month in recorded history." High river marks exceeded by 10 feet. A total volume of rainwater four miles square and two miles tall. Millions of residents evacuated or sheltering in place in America's fourth-largest city. All of them afraid.
Just days later came Irma, the most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record, whose strength was matched only by its unpredictability. Who should evacuate and where? Then, in less than a week, Maria followed, destroying much of Puerto Rico's infrastructure.
The shock of these powerful and unprecedented events in such quick succession rattles even the strongest. How do we ready ourselves for "unprecedented"?
While these disasters are unprecedented in many ways, they are not beyond imagination and not immune to safer and smarter policies …
UPDATE: President Trump is no longer scheduled to speak on deregulation on October 2, but the planned deregulatory "summit" with various cabinet-level agencies is still slated to occur.
Government-sanctioned cruelty makes for shocking images, as the events of the past few weeks demonstrate. People in wheelchairs forcibly dragged from congressional hearing rooms for protesting legislative attempts to strip them of access to affordable health care. The uncertainty on the faces of Puerto Rican parents as they survey the damage to their homes in the wake of Hurricane Maria and wonder when – or if – officials in Washington will come to the aid of their families and those of their fellow citizens.
In a White House speech scheduled for Monday, October 2, President Trump will affirm in no uncertain terms that his administration does not merely tolerate such brazen indifference to our country's most vulnerable members but intends …
Tomorrow, CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor is scheduled to appear before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law of the House Judiciary Committee to testify at a hearing focused on the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The CRA is a controversial law that has been aggressively used this past year by the majority in Congress and the Trump administration to repeal 14 regulatory safeguards that would have protected consumers, workers, and our environment. In her testimony, Steinzor makes the case for repealing the CRA, arguing that it is an ineffective tool for overseeing the executive branch and its recent abuses have served only to further erode public esteem for Congress as a democratic institution.
Steinzor's testimony summarizes the damage that Congress has done to its own reputation through its misguided abuse of the CRA in the following stark terms:
I agree that the 115th Congress …
On September 25, a group of Member Scholars from the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) submitted comments on the Trump administration's proposed rollback of the "waters of the United States" rule (technically, the rollback rule has been issued by EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but its support within those agencies comes only from the Trump administration's political appointees). The proposed rule addresses the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act – which means, in non-legal terms, that it decides which waters get protected by federal law.
Two years ago, EPA and the Army Corps released the "Clean Water Rule," which clarified and very slightly increased the scope of these protections. The current proposal would throw the Clean Water Rule onto the scrap heap. The eventual goal, as the administration has made perfectly clear, is to reduce the reach of the …
This op-ed originally ran in the Baltimore Sun.
The full scope of the heartbreaking devastation wrought by hurricanes Harvey and Irma — the human, economic and environmental toll — may not be completely understood for years. As we do what we can to help the victims, it is also time to think about how we can prepare for the inevitable here in Baltimore. After all, Baltimore floods more than most other cities in the United States and gets little help from our inadequate water infrastructure.
Every time a major storm visits our region, millions of gallons of sewage overflow from Baltimore's antiquated sewers. Worse, our sewer system has failed time and again under even the smallest rainfalls. In August, federal, state and city regulators and lawyers finalized a deal to modify the legal settlement originally signed in 2002 to upgrade sewer infrastructure by 2016.
The good news is …
UPDATE: The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has rescheduled the confirmation hearing originally slated for Wednesday, September 20. The committee now plans to hold the hearing on Wednesday, October 4.
Three influential EPA offices – the Offices of Air, Water, and Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention – share a common attribute. Each is at the center of a defining battle over its future. What is the future of climate regulation at EPA? How will the agency define "waters of the United States" given that the Trump administration is intent on dismantling the Clean Water Rule? And what will public safety officials do with last year's modifications to the outdated Toxic Substances Control Act? EPA has made bold moves under President Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt on each of these fronts, so you'd be forgiven if you thought that a Senate-approved nominee were at the helm …
In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, thousands of Texans and Floridians are out of work, some indefinitely. Without knowing when their employers might reopen for business (if at all) , many are uncertain how they're going to afford their next meal or purchase basic necessities, much less repair their damaged homes and property. At the same time, monthly bills are coming due.
Vice News recently shared one Houston family’s gripping story of how Harvey has devastated them financially. Guadalupe and her husband are undocumented immigrants living in Houston with their three daughters. He works as an electrician, and like many families across the country, they live paycheck-to-paycheck and do not have savings adequate to withstand an emergency. As Hurricane Harvey approached, Guadalupe’s husband was sent home early from work, and as of the time Vice ran its story on September 2, he had …
As Hurricane Irma takes aim at the Florida coast, questions about property and community vulnerabilities abound, including for some of President Donald Trump's properties. A brief analysis by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) has found that while Trump's properties, including Mar-a-Lago, face significant risk of damage from the hurricane and from the ongoing impacts of climate change, surrounding neighborhoods and communities will have a much more difficult time rebuilding and recovering from the storm.
Three Trump developments in South Florida rank among the top seven most climate-vulnerable of his properties nationwide – Trump National Doral Miami, Trump National Golf Club, and Mar-a-Lago, all of which are located in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. All are vulnerable to storm surge and flooding with potential inundation of at least part of each property, but should the president (or his not-so-blind trust) choose to repair and rebuild them …
Last month, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke submitted his long-anticipated report to President Trump that recommends dismantling and looting some of America's treasured monuments and antiquities. (This was interesting timing, given that the president stood firmly behind the preservation of some other, far less-cherished monuments.)
In anticipation of the report, Theodore Roosevelt IV, the 26th president's great-grandson, wrote a letter to the editor in the Houston Chronicle telling Zinke that his actions have failed to live up to the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt, whom the Secretary of the Interior claims to admire. The lifelong Republican wrote that, in stark contrast to Zinke and Trump, his great-grandfather had a "fierce determination to take on profiteers who were seeking to exploit public lands for private gains."
Picking up where Roosevelt IV left off, it is worth exploring this point a little further, as it reveals perhaps the …
As the country bears witness to the impacts of Hurricane Harvey, a storm unlike any other, the Trump administration's policy of rolling back worker, emergency response, and environmental safeguards will all but ensure that victims of future flooding events will be exposed to toxic contamination.
Over just a 36-hour period, an estimated 9 trillion gallons of rainwater deluged Texas, affecting millions and displacing tens of thousands along the Gulf Coast and in Houston. As the rainfall and flooding wear on this week, emergency responders continue rescuing stranded victims from the floodwaters. News outlets have reported that these floodwaters have exposed thousands to sewage overflows, but far less noted is how severe floods also expose residents and emergency responders to toxic industrial contamination.
Oil and gas refineries – including the nation's second largest – shuttered operations before and during Harvey, confirming years of warnings about the vulnerability of …
