Sowing Confusion and Doubt, Trump Attempts Climate Policy Rollbacks
Donald Trump has been in office only 68 days, and already I've passed the threshold from shock to boredom. His order to erase climate change from federal policy, preceded by a speech before captive members of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only seals the deal. I served at the EPA during President Obama's first term, helping that agency and others prepare for the hazards of climate change. That work is serious and complicated and subtle. Trump, of course, is anything but. The man is as formulaic as a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
First there's the over-the-top infliction of trauma with blindness to reason. He'll launch an executive order rescinding climate change policy! Forget the decades of studies and empirical data confirming an era of rising seas, heavier rains, and stronger storms. Science is for nerds with thick glasses. Only a "loser" would stop an expensive project just because there was a risk of climate-based harm. So license that nuclear reactor in a flood plain. Unroll that highway on the sinking shore. And forget the curlicue of regulations meant to catapult communities toward the job-creating industries of wind and solar, and that cut pollution, too. Real air is the …
This op-ed originally ran in The South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The most drastic cut in President Donald Trump's recently released budget outline is to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the agency tasked by law with setting and enforcing national standards to limit water, air, and land pollution; conducting scientific research to protect our health and the environment; and assisting state and local governments in reducing pollution.
Even as the tasks assigned to it by Congress have multiplied over the years, the EPA's budget has been cut sharply in the past two decades. From a high point of 18,110 employees in 1999, the agency's work force responsible for enforcing the nation's environmental laws now numbers fewer than 15,000 people. Despite this, the Trump budget proposes the elimination of 3,200 more employees in 2018 and to cut the agency's overall budget …
Yale economist William Baumol has written extensively on the connection between innovation and economic productivity. He has demonstrated that the United States has long been committed to promoting innovation, and through innovation, virtuous circles of economic growth are created. Unfortunately, the current administration appears committed to curtailing, even stopping, that growth.
The president's first budget has many targets. One, though, directly contradicts Baumol's research and, more problematically, directly contradicts the U.S. Constitution. From the Founding, it has been a fundamental principal of the United States "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Art. I, §8, cl.8. But the Trump 2018 budget imposes severe – some congressional Republicans call them draconian – reductions in these areas. Among the most drastic is the greater than 30 percent sledgehammer applied to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the elimination of the highly successful Advanced Research Projects …
In the early 1970s, Congress passed the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act on nearly unanimous votes. The overwhelming support for these new laws reflected not only the horrific condition of America’s air, water, and landscape at the time, but also an appreciation of the collective action problem states faced, necessitating federal action.
The major environmental laws that passed in the following years were predicated on the need to set a federal floor for environmental standards in order to provide all Americans with a basic right to clean air, safe water, and a healthy environment, no matter the state they lived in. The laws also represented an understanding that states were no more likely to act alone in investing in new regulatory programs than a business would be to self-regulate without corresponding action from its competitors.
The clear consensus, then, was that the federal government …
Last year around this time, I happily deleted this headline, "A Dark Day for the Bay," which I was preparing to use for a blog post in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal of the American Farm Bureau Federation and other plaintiffs in their challenge to the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort known as the Bay TMDL. Ultimately, the Court denied that appeal, leaving in place the decision of a federal appeals court that upheld the Bay TMDL and solidified the Bay restoration effort at a critical time – the midpoint assessment period. I once again considered dusting off this ominous headline last fall when Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) successfully added a provision known as a "rider" to a budget bill, which would have blocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from imposing any "backstop actions" to ensure the TMDL …
As part of a coalition of public interest organizations working toward a responsible federal budget that protects people and the planet, I released the following statement on President Trump's reckless budget proposal that guts the EPA, eliminates federal funding for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort, and more.
"The president's 'skinny budget' is a particularly apt description for a proposal that would leave crucial protector agencies too emaciated to safeguard our health, safety and environment. Whether it's pipeline inspectors to protect our land and water from oil spills, or workplace safety inspectors to ensure our family members return home safely from their jobs, or environmental inspectors to prevent air pollution and toxic chemical disasters, many agencies simply don't have sufficient resources to conduct the level of enforcement needed to safeguard all Americans. Slashing their budgets even further would be the height of irresponsibility, and …
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a seemingly minor zoning case, Murr v. State of Wisconsin. In reality, the case involves a fundamental challenge to public authority to protect our communities and private property. In particular, if the Court were to rule in favor of petitioners, it would make it vastly more difficult for communities to compel large-scale developers to comply with zoning and other land use laws.
Here’s the back story. In 1972, the Secretary of the Interior approved a request by the Governors of Wisconsin and Minnesota to include the Lower St. Croix River in the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system based on its outstanding scenic and recreational values. Despite this national designation, state and local land use agencies control development along the river’s banks. The Murr case arises from the efforts by St. Croix County, Wisconsin, to …
The Trump administration’s fundamental hostility to government is by now plainly apparent. The President issued an executive order requiring agencies to get rid of two regulations for each new one that is adopted. He appointed administrators who have been extraordinarily hostile to the missions of the departments and agencies that they now head, such as Scott Pruitt at EPA and Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education. And he has proposed deep budget cuts for regulatory agencies. Instead of the touted “reforms,” the administration is committed to a regulatory agenda that affirmatively and aggressively seeks to frustrate the normal operations of government as part of a “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
Throughout U.S. history, government regulation has generated a wide variety of public benefits including safer workplaces and food, cleaner air and water, traffic safety, and greater protection for civil and political rights. These regulations …
This op-ed originally ran in The Hill.
The Feb. 28 executive order overturning a Clean Water Act rule clarifying EPA's jurisdiction over wetlands furnishes but the latest example of President Trump's propensity to rule by almost daily fiat. Trump has ruled by decree ever since he assumed office. He has not proposed a single bill to our elected representatives, not even a bill to help blue-collar workers and rebuild America through infrastructure projects, one of his main campaign promises. Nor has he supported a bill introduced by others to accomplish this.
Our Constitution, however, authorizes an elected legislature to establish laws and directs the president only to "faithfully execute" them. And it requires all government officials to swear an oath to obey the law. The introduction of the oath clause into our Constitution marked a sharp departure from prior practice, under which government officials swore …
Unless you regularly read newspapers from markets ranging from Baltimore to Houston to the San Francisco Bay area, chances are that you missed some of the op-eds that CPR’s scholars and staff published in the nation’s newspapers in February. We post links on our website, of course; you can find them on the various issue pages, as well as on our op-eds page. But we thought CPRBlog readers might appreciate a quick rundown from last month, so here goes:
- In a February 2 piece in the Houston Chronicle, CPR’s Tom McGarity warned about the dangers of the Regulatory Accountability Act, which had recently zipped through the House of Representatives. He wrote, “The proponents of the bill insist that it will improve federal regulation, but the real purpose and effect of the bill is to stall the overall process making it harder for federal agencies …
