Trump Gears Up To Boast About Deregulation
Trump’s State of the Union address previewed many of his 2020 election messages. For instance, he has repeatedly argued Democrats want to embrace socialism after proclaiming during the speech that “America will never be a socialist country.”
Expect Trump to return to his bold claims about how much he has done for business by cutting regulation, especially if Democrats continue to call for tighter rules on companies. In a statement, Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said: “President Trump’s deregulation has spurred job growth and raised paychecks across the country, unleashed entrepreneurship and saved billions of taxpayer dollars.”
Epa Issues Controversial Rule On Science ‘transparency’
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a rule Tuesday that would only allow the agency to consider in its rule making scientific studies for which the underlying data are made available publicly. The science that we use is going to be transparent. Its going to be reproducible, Pruitt told reporters.
Industry and conservative groups have called for this change for some time, while some environmental groups warn that it could reduce the EPA’s ability to consider all the evidence available when making rules on tough questions like power plant emissions and the safety of everything from pesticides to consumer products.
In a letter, nearly 1,000 scientists asked Pruitt to abandon the proposal, which they said would greatly weaken EPA’s ability to comprehensively consider the scientific evidence. Much of the data that would be excluded is based on reviews of personal health information, which is often not publicly available because of privacy laws or practical challenges.
This proposal would mean throwing out the studies we rely on to protect the public, for no good reason, said Betsy Southerland, a longtime EPA scientist, in a press release from the Union of Concerned Scientists. This would have an enormous and negative impact on the EPAs ability to enforce the law and protect peoples health. Administrator Pruitt cant carry out the basic responsibilities of his job if he insists that his agency ignore the evidence.
Epa Chief Downplays Climate
In a sharp break with scientific consensus, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt says in an interview on CNBCs Squawk Box that carbon dioxides role in the Earths changing climate remains unclear. U.S. and international scientists have repeatedlyconnected rising carbon emissions to the Earths changing climate. A 2014 review by the National Academy of Sciences, the United States preeminent scientific advisory body, observed that the Earths warming since the 1970s is mainly a result of the increased concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
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Epa Drops Delay Of Obama
In an about-face spurred by a 16-state lawsuit, the Trump administration EPA has dropped its decision to delay Obama-era regulations on ozone. The potent lung irritant forms when strong sunlight irradiates emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other sources.
In October 2015, the Obama administration tightened the ozone national standard from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion, citing ozones toll on public health. The Obama administration estimated that the reduction would yield $2.9 to $5.9 billion worth of health benefits in 2025, outweighing its estimated annual cost of $1.4 billion.
Few were entirely thrilled with the 2015 regulations. Environmental and public-health groups criticized the regulation as not stringent enough, citing evidence that ozone still poses a public health threat at 70 parts per billion, the upper end of the ozone standards recommended by scientists advising the EPA. Meanwhile, industry groups and their allies in Congress criticized the rule for the costs it would inflict.
In June, the EPA announced its intent to delay the implementation of the rule from October 1, 2017, to October 1, 2018, citing lingering questions and the regulations complexities. In response, 16 Democratic state attorneys general and the District of Columbia petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the one-year delay.
In its reversal the next day, the EPA cited its commitment to working with the states.
Trump Proposes Cuts To Climate And Clean
In its FY2019 budget and addendum, the Trump administration has proposed sweeping rollbacks to U.S. programs designed to study and mitigate the effects of climate change, as well as cuts to research on renewable energy.
At this point, the budget is merely an opening bid in negotiations with Congress last year, lawmakers largely ignored similar proposed cuts. Nevertheless, the budget provides insight into the White House’s priorities.
For instance, the EPA budget suggests eliminating the environmental agency’s climate-change research program, which currently costs the agency $16 million per year. In addition, the EPA has proposed axing several voluntary emissions-reductions programs and STAR, which funds environmental research and graduate student fellowships.
Other parts of the budget trim environmental services, such as the EPA’s Report on the Environment, and cut the agency’s Human Health Risk Assessment program by nearly 40 percent.
As it did in 2017, the Trump administration has proposed axing several NASA Earth-science missions, including PACE and OCO-3.
The budget also calls for shutting down the Earth-facing instruments aboard DSCOVR, which is already flying. These instruments include EPIC, which continually photographs Earth’s sunlit half to measure the planet’s energy budget.
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Water Protection May Dry Up
President Trump issues an executive order formally asking the EPA to review the Waters of the United States rule, an Obama-era rule meant to clarify which U.S. waters fall under federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction. The rule had extended federal protections to some headwaters of larger waterways, wetlands, and isolated lakes.
Streams Reopened To Mining Waste
President Trump signs a joint resolution passed by Congress revoking the U.S. Department of the Interiors Stream Protection Rule. That rule, finalized shortly before President Obama left office, placed stricter restrictions on dumping mining waste into surrounding waterways. Congressional Republicans characterized the rule as redundant and onerous.
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First Epa Administrator Scott Pruitt
As the attorney general of Oklahoma, Trump’s choice of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt challenged EPA regulations in court more than a dozen times. With some cases still pending, Pruitt declined to say if he would recuse himself with regard to those suits. Pruitt hired former Oklahoma banker Albert Kelly to head the Superfund program, which is responsible for cleaning up the nation’s most contaminated land. Kelly completely lacked any experience with environmental issues, and had just received a lifetime ban from working in banking, his career until then, due to “unfitness to serve”.
In April 2018, Pruitt drew criticism for what some consider to be the excessive security expenditures which he had requested. Trump defended Pruitt in a tweet stating, “Record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars.” However, according to PolitiFact no new figures on air quality have been released since 2016. To state the nation’s waters as being at record clean levels is also inaccurate since while a report was issued in 2017, the information was gathered in 2012 or earlier. Commenting on Pruitt’s claim that his excessive security expenses are related to his need for security, The New York Times commented that the high expenses appear to be “driven more by a desire to avoid tough questions from the public than by concerns about security.” In April 2018, thirty-nine members of the Senate and more than 130 members of the House of Representativescalled for Pruitt’s resignation.
Trump Cuts And The Epa: Making America Less Healthy Again
Joel Mintz
Joel Mintz
Joel A. Mintz is a Professor Emeritus of Law and C. William Trout Senior Fellow in Public Interest Law at Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
For more than 30 years, Professor Mintz has taught a variety of substantive and clinical environmental law courses, including offerings on the federal law of pollution control, comparative environmental law, environmental aspects of land use planning, and other subjects. He has written extensively on environmental enforcement, the Superfund program, growth management, sustainable development, and certain international environmental agreements.
Professor Mintz co-founded Nova Southeastern Law Center’s in-house Environmental and Land Use Law Clinic, which provides representation to environmental citizens groups and neighborhood organizations in matters that concern implementation of the Florida Growth Management Act and protection of the Everglades and the Florida Keys. He has testified as a legal expert witness in judicial and administrative proceedings, and has given numerous presentations on environmental topics at gatherings of professional and trade associations and on radio and television public affairs broadcasts.
Professor Mintz serves on the board of directors of the Everglades Law Center, Inc., a not-for-profit environmental public interest law firm based in South Florida. He chairs that firm’s Litigation Screening Committee.
Joel Mintz
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Trump Signs Executive Order To Cut Regulations Hampering Economic Recovery
May 19 — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday seeking to cut regulations that hamper economic recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump said the order directs federal agencies to review hundreds of regulations that have been suspended in response to the pandemic and make those suspensions permanent where possible.
“With millions of Americans forced out of work by the virus, it’s more important than ever to remove burdens that destroy American jobs,” Trump said.
He also said he instructed agencies to use emergency authorities to speed up regulation cuts or “new rules that will create jobs and prosperity and get rid of unnecessary rules and regulations.”
The administration has taken steps to loosen some regulations amid the pandemic, including a by the Environmental Protection Agency announcing it suspended enforcement of environmental laws requiring companies to monitor their pollution.
Council On Environmental Quality
The Council on Environmental Quality is a division of the Executive Office of the President that coordinates federal environmental efforts and works closely with agencies and other White House offices on the development of environmental and energy policies and initiatives. In October 2017, Trump nominated Kathleen Hartnett White, former chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, to be chair of CEQ. Some of Hartnett’s energy views have been considered controversial. She has “called renewable energy unreliable and parasitic” and she has “suggested that climate regulation is a conspiracy pushed by communists.” Her nomination was withdrawn in February 2018 as she did not garner enough support in the Senate.
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Trump Officials Set Aside Evidence Of National Monuments’ Successes
As the Trump administration downsized Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments and reviewed dozens more, U.S. Department of the Interior officials dismissed evidence that the monument designations brought benefits, the Washington Post reports.
On July 16, the Interior Department’s Freedom of Information Act team uploaded thousands of pages of documents that had not been completely redacted. The next day, officials took down these documents and replaced them.
The erroneously un-redacted documents contain facts that cast some monuments in a positive light. One 2017 analysis by the Bureau of Land Management mentioned that once Grand Staircase-Escalante became a national monument, the annual rate of archaeological listings in the area more than doubled, and vandalism dropped. In December 2017, President Trump moved to shrink the monument by 46 percent.
In another document, Interior Department official Randal Bowman recommended deleting fishing data from an assessment of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The administration reviewed the Atlantic Ocean monumentwhich President Obama created in 2016amid concerns that the monument’s ban on fishing hurt local fishers.
Bowman sought to nix data showing that from 2005 to 2014, about two-thirds of the area’s shipping vessels generated less than five percent of their annual landings from the waters that became the monument.
Trump Budget Proposes Steep Cuts For The Environment
President Trumps 2018 budget, sent to Congress Tuesday, calls for massive cuts in scientific research and in a slew of environmental programs that protect air and water. The proposed budget, titled A New Foundation for American Greatness, slashes the Environmental Protection Agencys budget by 31 percent a steeper cut than any other agency. Those cuts could translate into a $2.7 billion spending reduction and the loss of 3,200 jobs, according to an analysis by the World Resources Institute. The proposed budget eliminates major programs to restore the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and Puget Sound. It ends the EPAs lead-risk reduction and radon detection programs and cuts funding for the Superfund cleanup program.
The budget proposal does, however, retain funding for grants and financing to states and cities for drinking water and wastewater programs. S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, told the Washington Post that he was amazed that the final EPA budget is nearly identical to the preliminary budget released in March, despite strong opposition at the time from many members of Congress. In addition, the Interior Department would undergo a 12 percent funding cut, and the Energy Department a six percent cut.
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The Administration Rushed To Implement Dozens Of Policy Changes In Its Final Days We Followed Some Of The Most Consequential And Controversial
by Isaac Arnsdorf, Lydia DePillis, Dara Lind, Lisa Song, Moiz Syed, Zipporah Osei, ProPublica, November 25, 2020. Updated February 8, 2021.
Dozens of rules pushed through in the final weeks of the administration of President Donald Trump will lengthen an already-long to-do list for President Joe Biden if he wants to unwind his predecessor’s legacy. Its common for outgoing administrations to rush through last-minute rules, but these midnight regulations can sometimes shortchange public input or thorough analysis, and they may tie the hands of the incoming president. ProPublica tracked the most controversial and consequential regulations.
The Biden administration stepped in to stop some rules that hadnt already taken effect. Others face challenges in court. In addition, Congress has the option of repealing any rules finalized since mid-August through the Congressional Review Act. For any effective rules that dont get blocked by courts or Congress, the agencies will have to go through a full rule-making process to undo them.
Trump Nominates Andrew Wheeler To Permanent Epa Job
Though the federal government remains shut down, President Donald Trump officially nominated Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler to the post on a permanent basis on Wednesday. Wheeler had served in the acting role since July, when former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned after intense media scrutiny and ethics scandals .
Confirmed by the Senate as acting administrator, Wheeler will now need an additional confirmation for the permanent job.
The former coal lobbyist has largely continued Pruitt’s legacy in office. In August Wheeler released a proposed rule that would roll back fuel-efficiency and pollution standards for vehicles, as well as limit California’s ability to set its own car standards. Wheeler also unveiled a proposed replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan that would let states set their own rules. In December Wheeler rolled out a weakened redo of the Waters of the United States rule, which would limit oversight of a range of activities from farming to industry.
Trump said Wheeler has “done a fantastic job” in his acting role.
For me, there is no greater responsibility than protecting human health and the environment, and I look forward to carrying out this essential task on behalf of the American public, Wheeler said in a statement upon his nomination.
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