• Politics

You Know What’s REALLY Scary? Another Four Years of Trump

• air pollution
• algal blooms
• clean water
• climate change
• conservation
• Freddie Krueger
• Ghostbusters
• Halloween
• Joe Biden
• Nightmare on Elm Street
• rollbacks
• safe drinking water
• Scream
• toxins

It’s Halloween — a time when people think scaring each other is fun. But this year, we are afraid very, very afraid — of what might happen on global warming and the environment in the United States if Donald Trump, the Freddie Krueger of climate action and conservation, wins a second term in the election. Talk about a Nightmare on Elm Street.

It’s frightening to think about what our country will look like after four more years of Trump.  But in the spirit of the season, let’s try to picture it.

• People

Supreme Court Decisions Provide Opportunities for Wins in Climate and Environment Cases

• Administrative Procedure Act
• environment
• rollbacks
• rules
• Supreme Court

This week, the Supreme Court decided important cases favoring the rights of LGBTQ individuals and the policy of allowing the “Dreamers” who were brought to the U.S. by their parents at a young age to remain in the U.S. undocumented.  Both cases provide important legal principles that could be significant in a host of litigation over climate change and the rollback of environmental protections. 

Why This Matters:  The Trump administration has been ruthless and careless in its quest to blunt the impacts of the nation’s environmental laws and rollback related policies and regulations.

• People

EPA’s Air, Water and Toxic Waste Failures Compounding Health and Safety Risks to Public

• air pollution
• conservation
• environment
• regulation
• rollbacks
• science
• toxic waste
• water pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, appeared before Congress yesterday and when asked about all the rollbacks of environmental regulations by the agency recently, he defended his leadership saying “All our rules make things better.” 

Why This Matters:  It is patently clear that EPA is making things better for corporate polluters, not ordinary citizens who are negatively impacted by them.

• Health

Trump’s Own Advisors Say Rule Rollbacks Buck Established Science

• clean cars
• EPA
• mercury
• rollbacks
• WOTUS

The Science Advisory Board of the Environmental Protection Agency, in a notice they buried with a New Year’s Eve publication, took issue with four significant rule rollbacks —  the Trump administration’s rewrite of an Obama’s definition of which waterways can be regulated, Obama’s clean car rule on tailpipe emissions, a proposal to weaken an Obama rule on toxic air pollutants including mercury, and a new regulation to limit scientific data that can be used to draft health regulations — saying that these rules “neglect established science” or contain “significant weaknesses in the scientific analysis.“

• Politics

President Trump Plans Speech Today Touting Environmental Accomplishments

• clean cars
• clean power
• environmental protection
• health and safety
• pesticides
• rollbacks
• toxic

According to the White House, President Trump plans to give a Rose Garden address today to “recognize his administration’s environmental leadership and America’s role in leading the world.”  The White House apparently reached out to its supporters last Wednesday, and according to The Guardian, in an off-the-record conference requested that the supporters “spread the message that the U.S. under Trump continues to be an environmental leader.”

• Politics

Wheeler Denies Climate Crisis in his Confirmation Hearing

• Black Friday Report
• climate change
• coal
• confirmation
• EPA
• rollbacks
• Senate
• Wheeler

Andrew Wheeler, the Acting EPA  Administrator, appeared before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee yesterday for his confirmation hearing and was greeted by protesters and angry questioning by the Committee’s Democratic members.  The protesters began shouting “Shutdown Wheeler” just as he began to read his opening statement, and were quickly removed, as he raised his eyebrows in disdain (see video above.)  Drawing fire from the Democrats on the Committee, Wheeler said that climate change is a “global issue” but “not the greatest crisis,” and did not even mention climate change in his opening statement.