 Air
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Trump Rolls Back Clean Car Rule, Keeps Obama Smog Standard
The Trump Administration rolled out two big air pollution decisions last week. As you probably saw, the EPA announced it would seek comment on a proposal to disallow California (and other states that follow their standard) from enacting stricter standards on pollution from cars. The decision was announced in an op/ed by the EPA Administrator and the Secretary of Transportation in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Make Cars Great Again."
When the Clean Air Act was passed, California had a HUGE smog problem, so they got Congress to allow them to put in place tougher rules for car fuel efficiency (which forces car makers to make cars that pollute less like hybrids). The catch is that EPA gets to approve those rules. But, but, but ... the law says EPA MUST approve the California standard UNLESS they deem them to be either unnecessary to meet "compelling and extraordinary conditions" or inconsistent with other portions of the Clean Air Act. Bottom line, even here, where the Clean Air Act is super deferential to California, the courts could side with the Trump Administration and say there is no need for California's tougher standard. Republicans generally favor allowing states as opposed to the federal government to regulate (generally they are more lenient) but not in this case.
At the same time, the Trump Administration decided that the EPA would no longer attempt to revise or repeal the current health standard, which lowered the permissible amount of ground-level ozone from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70. The former Administrator of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, had announced that the agency would be rolling back that standard too. But the scientific evidence that the standard was not sufficiently protective at 75 ppb must have been overwhelming.
Why This Matters: These two decisions are moving the Trump Administration in opposite directions. Now states will have to lower their ozone pollution levels to comply with the new health standard but they cannot do it by requiring cleaner cars. It will give the Trump Administration the ability to say they have tough health standards -- but this standard is meaningless unless there are regulatory actions behind it to actually bring down emissions. Interestingly, the auto industry called on the Administration to go back to the table to negotiate a deal as opposed to protracted litigation. Governor Brown of California has vowed to fight this " assault on the health of Americans everywhere." And there is a national ad campaign now running on Fox News with national security leaders explaining why supporting the clean car rule is important for our national security.
To Go Deeper: To see what national security experts like former national security advisors Tom Donilon and Susan Rice have to say about the rollback, click here. You can learn more about the security implications of the rule by following National Security Action here.
What You Can Do: Speak up and tell the Administration what you think about their rollback of the clean car rule. You can submit comments at www.regulations.gov to Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0283. Your comments do not need to be long or technical - just make your voice heard!
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National Security Action Ad Opposing Clean Car Rule Rollback
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 Land
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Mexico's President-Elect Announces Decision to Ban Fracking
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the populist who takes office as President of Mexico in December, announced last week that he will end hydraulic fracking. According to the Associated Press, at a press conference he stated, "[w]e will no longer use that method to extract petroleum." The energy industry in Mexico has been hoping to frack in the shale-rich Burgos Basin in the north, according to a report in DeSmog as reported by Ecowatch. Less than a year ago, under Obrador's predecessor, Mexico's energy ministry opened the onshore portion of the Burgos Basin for natural gas exploration and development by private companies.
Many U.S. municipalities and other countries around the world ban fracking, including, most recently Ireland, which banned it in June much to the dismay of British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Why This Matters: It is mostly a symbolic move, according to industry experts, because Mexico's conventional petroleum reserves are substantial -- they do not need to resort to fracking for another five or ten years to have sufficient oil and gas supplies. According to Thomas Tunstall, of the University of Texas at San Antonio's Institute of Economic Development, "[n]ear-term, a ban on hydraulic fracturing in Mexico would have no impact, economically or environmentally." But as symbolic political moves go, it sends an important signal of a change in course for Mexico under its new leadership.
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 People
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Photo: Marcus Yam / LA Times
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Immigrants Risk Lives Fighting Fires in Conservative Redding, CA
Wildfires throughout Northern California continue to destroy acres of land and homes and firefighting crews are once again facing a fire season that will break records. These exceptionally hardworking men and women are often away from home, without days off, for 14+ days at a time and during a wildfire are asked to work 16+ hour days. Also, increasingly, fire crews are being comprised of immigrants, many of them Mexican immigrants who work these jobs in the summer and spend the other part of the year working in agriculture. According to data from the Public Policy Institute of California, a non-profit and non-partisan research institution, there were 2,408 immigrant firefighters in California in 2016, compared to 1,288 in 2011.
As the LA Times reported, Shasta County is Trump country. The president won the county with 65% of the vote. In February, Shasta County voted to become a “non-sanctuary” zone for immigrants in the country illegally. But for the fire crew of Mexican immigrants, politics never enters the mind. This isn’t about Trump or his supporters, or about border walls. It’s about the pride of protecting people’s homes. 46-year-old Juan Cisneros, a Mexican immigrant, said it was his second year with the crew. Cisneros said he doesn’t like what he hears on the news about immigrants, but he tries to simply ignore it. He hopes critics of immigrants will pay attention to the work he and others do, adding that, “I want them to see our contributions here."
Why This Matters: I (Miro) have shared before that my family almost lost our house in Sonoma as a result of the massive wildfires that broke out last summer. The most moving experience of that entire tragedy was knowing that in times that feel so divisive there are men and women out there who are willing to risk their lives to protect the homes of total strangers (a heartfelt thank you to Oakland FD who saved our home!). In those terrifying moments, personal politics or immigration status are completely irrelevant and we're reminded that we're all human beings who have the same fears and hopes for a better future. Our thoughts are with everyone who is in harm's way as fires rage throughout the country (this is a good roundup of ways you can help). However, if anything good can come out of these disasters then perhaps it's a reminder to see the humanity in everyone, climate change and natural disasters don't discriminate when they alter our way of life and we'll all need to rely on one another to adapt to this new reality.
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 Animals
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An endangered southern resident killer whale known as Tahlequah carrying her dead calf.
Photo: Center for Whale Research
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Orca Mom Can't Let Go
This is a sad one -- grab your hankies. The Seattle Times reported the heartbreaking story of a young female orca whale in Puget Sound that had been observed carrying her dead newborn baby for more than a week. This type of "mourning" behavior is normal but does not usually last so long, according to scientists at The Whale Museum on San Juan Island. During that time the whale, name Tahlequah, had traveled hundreds of miles with the baby on her rostrum (snout), according to scientists who had been searching for her since they saw her after the death of her newborn. Jenny Atkinson, executive director of The Whale Museum on San Juan Island, told NPR that this is the longest period researchers have observed a mother carrying its baby after death. This was the first baby born to the pod in 3 years, according to Atkinson.
This pod of southern resident killer whales has only 75 remaining members, so each newborn is precious. Another member of the pod is also failing and appears to be near death due to starvation. This population has been hit hard by noise pollution, water pollution, boat traffic and lack of food as salmon populations in that part of the country have dwindled in recent years. Researchers hope to retrieve the calf eventually and study why it did not survive.
Why This Matters: This population of orcas is beloved in the region -- efforts to save it have been ongoing for decades. Many whale watching businesses there depend on these animals as a driver for tourism. But unless we can better control the threats to this pod -- particularly to wild salmon on which the pod relies for food -- it may just be a matter of time. It is hard to sustain a population when it dwindles this low. Which is why many hearts in Seattle and around the world were broken by the videos of the mourning mother that went viral. It's hard not to feel her pain when you see these photos.
What You Can Do: If you are moved by this story, you can share your thoughts -- the Seattle Times is collecting them -- click here and scroll down to weigh in.
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 Oceans
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Worst Red Tide in Decades Still Ravaging Florida
Last week we talked about Western Florida's "red tide" (a toxic bloom of algae that is harmful to marine animals and people) in the context of the hundreds of sea turtles is killed but things are only getting worse. Not only has the red tide claimed the lives of thousands of fish, dolphins, and manatees but it also has reportedly killed a whale shark for the first known time. As NBC News reported, The foul siege reached from Sarasota nearly to the tip of Florida by early June, when ecological insult No. 2 arrived. A green film of cyanobacteria appeared, as it regularly does in summer, in vast Lake Okeechobee. But this year the bacteria also spilled over into rivers and canals, which carried the toxic green sludge east to the Atlantic Ocean and west to the Gulf of Mexico. Already distressed Floridians gagged on the noxious odor, and more than a dozen people reportedly went to local emergency rooms after coming into contact with the contaminated water. Some wept as beloved manatees expired, bloated and tinted a ghastly green.
Why This Matters: A lot of the coverage surrounding this algal bloom misses that humans are the culprit for the nitrogen that is released from farms that makes it into waterways and eventually finds its way to the ocean. This nitrogen can act as a stimulant that allows the microscopic algae, Karenia brevis, to reproduce and create massive blooms. To truly address these blooms we have to seriously consider how our agricultural systems are causing immense environmental harm.
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 Climate Change
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One Cringy Thing: POTUS Blames Fires On Environmental Laws
Instead of offering condolences to fire victims or vowing to take action on climate change President Trump instead tweeted last night that California's environmental laws are somehow to blame for fires. No one knows exactly what he meant (he could mean propositions to capture rainwater) but at a time when scientists are seeing the fingerprints of climate change all over the California wildfires, the president's job is to address the problem and the thousands of lives being affected, not just tweet confusing rhetoric. We're with Michelle Tanner on this one:
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