Environmental U-Turn

With the 2016 election of Donald Trump, U.S. energy and environmental policy pivoted almost 180 degrees.

The administration’s policy was for the US to attain energy independence based on fossil fuel use.  To that end, it rescinded 98 environmental rules and regulations, and supported gas and oil drilling in national forests and near national monuments and parks.

While the current administration has reversed some of these changes, others are now anchored not in agency rules and regulations, but by act of Congress.

Here is only a partial list of the environmental atrocities:

2016

• Installed a former coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Signed executive orders approving the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.

2018

• Announced plans to allow oil and gas drilling in nearly all U.S. waters.

2019

• Opened the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

• Rewrote pollution-control policies to reduce regulation of chemicals known to be serious health risks, to the benefit of the chemicals industry.

2020

• Pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord.
• Lowered vehicle emissions standards (projected to increase annual U.S. emissions by 20%.)

The clear message from the Trump administration’s Congressional enablers is that quality of life takes a back seat to corporate profits.

And there is no assurance that a change in control of Congress in 2022 will not allow the assault on the environment to pick up where it left off in 2020.