Trump’s First 100 Days Have Unleashed an “All-Out Assault” on the Environment |
Coal miners listen as President Donald J Trump speaks and signs executive orders about coal production during a "Unleashing American Energy Executive Order Signing Event."Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
One hundred days into the second Trump administration, many environmentalists’ worst fears about the new presidency have been realized—and surpassed.
Facing a spate of orders, pronouncements and actions that target America’s most cherished natural resources and most vulnerable communities, advocates fear the Trump agenda, unchecked, will set the country back decades.
“It is not an overstatement to say that the Trump administration has launched the worst White House assault in history on the environment and public health. Day by day and hour by hour, the administration is destroying one of the signature achievements of our time,” said Manish Bapna, the president and CEO of the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “If this assault succeeds, it could take a generation or more to repair the damage.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement to Inside Climate News that the president’s “corrupt assault on clean air, clean water, and affordable clean energy has helped make him the least popular president ever 100 days into the job.”
Polling shows President Donald Trump’s approval rate—39 percent, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll—is lower than any president’s at the 100-day mark since such polling began.
“Trump’s fossil-fuel-funded gangster government prioritizes lawlessness and disdain for the Constitution, not lowering household energy costs, or incentivizing economic growth, or reducing pollution,” Whitehouse said. “The American people know this has made them worse off, and it will get worse still.”
A press release issued by the White House on Earth Day last week presented a very different picture. Titled “On Earth Day, We Finally Have a President Who Follows Science,” the memo outlined key actions taken by Trump on the environment so far. These included “promoting energy innovation for a healthier future,” such as carbon capture and nuclear energy; “cutting wasteful regulations” like emissions rules for coal plants; “protecting wildlife” by ordering a pause on offshore wind; and “protecting public lands” by opening more of them to oil, gas, and mineral extraction “while ensuring responsible management.”
When reached for comment, the White House did not respond directly to the criticisms leveled at the administration for its environmental record so far, but instead affirmed a commitment to protection—repeating words Trump used during his campaign and since his election.
“As the President has said, the American people deserve clean air and clean water,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers responded. “In less than 100 days, EPA Administrator [Lee] Zeldin is taking steps to quickly remove toxins from our water and environment, provide clean land for Americans, and use commonsense policies to Power the Great American Comeback.”
To environmental experts, the Earth Day press release was indicative of a pattern in the administration’s communications with the public. “This is really a master class in doublespeak,” said Hannah Perls, a senior staff attorney at the Harvard University Environmental and Energy Law Program.
Rather than supporting “a healthier future,” in its first 100 days, the administration slashed government agencies and rescinded rules that lower pollution levels and improve public health outcomes. Instead of “energy innovation,” the president championed coal while killing renewable energy projects. Instead of protecting public lands, Trump fired thousands of parks and forest service employees, threatened to gut the Endangered Species Act and encouraged logging and drilling on federal lands. And instead of “following science,” the president cut critical research funding across disciplines and ignored expert consensus on climate change and conservation.
The administration, which has doubled down on climate denial, is also withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement—the treaty designed to help the world avoid the most dangerous consequences of the climate crisis—and cut loose the scientists working on the nation’s key climate assessment.
While it’s typical for a new administration to alter existing policies, the actions of the second Trump administration on climate and the environment are unprecedented—even compared with Trump’s first term.
“We always anticipate policy reversals with every administration, whether it’s Democrat or Republican,” Perls said. Those reversals used a “scalpel approach,” where policies were considered and changed on a case-by-case basis.
“This time around, they’re using dynamite,” she said.
“People under 50 don’t have any real life experience with just how dirty the air was before the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970,” said David Hawkins, senior attorney in climate and energy at NRDC. “Well, I do.”
He described living in New York City in the 1960s, his windowsill “black with soot in the morning”; plumes of smoke pouring from scores of apartment buildings, building furnaces and incinerators; the “tunnel of haze” obscuring Manhattan’s long avenues, the lead in the air “spewed from all of these automobiles, trucks and buses.”
Over his lifetime, Hawkins said in a call with the press in April, he watched as government regulations helped to curb this pollution. Regulations lowered toxic emissions. They reduced rates of respiratory illnesses, heart disease and premature deaths. And they brought huge economic and environmental benefits to the United States. “Here’s the scary news: These gains can be lost,” he said. “Keeping the air clean is not automatic.”
Hawkins said the administration’s attempts to sunset or repeal swaths of environmental regulations could undo the progress of the last 55 years.
“We don’t know exactly how broadly this executive order will be applied, but it could mean the end of protections that are keeping our air clean,” he said. “If the rules are sunset, there’s no legal obligation for these polluters to keep their equipment operating.”
Environmental attorneys have called the sunsetting provision “simply unlawful” and questioned whether it would ever hold up in court. But the........