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Ongoing: A running list of
how President Trump is changing environmental policy
The Trump administration has promised vast changes to U.S. science and
environmental policy—and we’re tracking them here as they happen.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/
-- 2012 --
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Trump tweeted in 2012: “If we didn't
remove incredibly powerful fire retardant asbestos & replace it with junk that
doesn’t work, the World Trade Center would never have burned down.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/the-7-oddest-things-donald-trump-thinks-214354
-- 2016 --
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May 20: Why is Trump so fixated on
abolishing the EPA?
http://grist.org/politics/why-is-trump-so-fixated-on-abolishing-the-epa/
June 9: Trump : I believe that the movement
against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies
that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and
as usual, the politicians relented. Millions of truckloads of this incredible
fire-proofing material were taken to special “dump sites” and asbestos was
replaced by materials that were supposedly safe but couldn’t hold a candle to
asbestos in limiting the ravages of fire.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/the-trump-files-asbestos-mob-conspiracy/
July 20: Donald Trump's promise to bring coal mining jobs back to West Virginia
is pure fantasy.
http://fortune.com/2016/07/20/why-donald-trump-wont-bring-coal-jobs-back-to-west-virginia/
October 13: You don’t need the World Health
Organization to tell you asbestos is nasty stuff. But if you do ask, the WHO
will tell you 107,00 people a year die of asbestos-related cancers and diseases.
Nevertheless, Trump managed to find reason to praise the substance.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/the-7-oddest-things-donald-trump-thinks-214354
November 14: Donald Trump
Says He'll Bring Back Coal. Here's Why He Can't
http://time.com/4570070/donald-trump-coal-jobs/
December 17: Top coal exec
to Trump: 'Temper' your coal job promises
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/16/investing/trump-coal-jobs-murray-energy/
-- 2017 --
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February 27: Did President
Trump save 77,000 coal mining jobs? Fact checker ....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/02/27/did-president-trump-save-77000-coal-mining-jobs/
March 9:
Ivanka Trump's D.C. landlord is tycoon behind planned Ely copper mine
Andrónico Luksic is a Chilean billionaire whose family controls Twin Metals,
the company embroiled in a legal fight with the U.S. government over a proposed
copper mine near the Minnesota Boundary Waters. He also owns the home where two
of the most influential people in Washington, D.C., are living.
That's according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports on the Minnesota
connection to
Ivanka Trump and
Jared Kushner's D.C. home, which Luksic bought just after the November
election. Trump and Kushner were also looking at the house but wanted to rent
it; their broker made the connection to Luksic, a spokeswoman said.
Twin Metals,
a unit of Chilean mining company Antofagasta, is embroiled in several
disputes over its proposed copper mine. It's sued the federal government over
expired mineral rights, and late last year regulators refused to reissue them,
citing the threat of pollution to Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2017/03/09/ivanka-trumps-dc-landlord-is-tycoon-behind-mine.html
--- May 22, 2018 -
The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday
said it has reinstated the mining exploration leases for the proposed Twin
Metals underground copper mine southeast of Ely.
---
The move is a reversal of a late Obama administration move that revoked
the leases because of the potential harmful impact of copper mining on the
nearby Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
--- The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management informed
Twin Metals Minnesota of its decision Wednesday. The move comes after the
Interior Department in December ruled that the Obama administration ruling to
withhold the lease was not lawful. Meanwhile the U.S. Forest Service is mulling
how to advance with a study of potential mining impact on the BWCAW, part of
which would be downstream of the mine site on the Kawishiwi River.
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/energy-and-mining/4440253-twin-metals-gets-leases-back-feds
--- June 25, 2018 - Two more lawsuits were filed
against the federal government Monday for its recent decision to reinstate
expired copper-nickel mining leases next to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area —
bringing the total to three complaints that altogether represent five
environmental groups and nine Minnesota businesses.
--- Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness filed its own
complaint, and four national environmental groups filed another. Last week nine
businesses from Ely, Minn., that rely on recreation and tourism in the BWCA
filed suit along with the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters. All three
complaints are pending in federal court in Washington, D.C.
--- The leases are held by Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of
Chilean conglomerate Antofagasta PLC, and are located on Superior National
Forest lands just outside the BWCA near Ely. Twin Metals said in a statement it
“firmly believes there is no basis for a court to disturb the reinstatement of
the leases and will take appropriate steps to defend the government’s actions.”
http://www.startribune.com/lawsuits-against-twin-metals-mining-leases-pile-up/486503581/
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March 9: Chief Environmental Justice
Official at EPA Resigns, With Plea to Pruitt to Protect Vulnerable Communities
Mustafa Ali quits after 24 years, as new administrator prepares
deep cuts in programs affecting the poor and minorities.
Mustafa Ali, a senior adviser and assistant associate administrator at the [environmental
justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency], worked to alleviate
the impact of air, water and industrial pollution on poverty-stricken towns and
neighborhoods during nearly a quarter century with the
EPA. He
helped found the environmental justice office, then the environmental equity
office, in 1992, during the presidency of President George H.W. Bush.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09032017/epa-environmental-justice-mustafa-ali-flint-water-crisis-dakota-access-pipeline-trump-scott-pruitt
March 9: ... a list of programs potentially affected by a
Trump administration proposal ... could slash the agency's budget by 24% and
reduce its staffing by 20%. Some of the EPA's most longstanding and best-known
programs are facing potential elimination, including initiatives aimed at
improving water and air quality as well as a number of regulations tasked with
reducing the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/epa-official-resigns-environmental-justice/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist
March 24:
Oil Companies Cool on Arctic Drilling. Trump Wants It Anyway. ... It’s hard to lure Big Oil to the Big Freeze when
crude is at $50 a barrel.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/24/oil-companies-cool-on-arctic-drilling-trump-wants-it-anyway-energy-alaska-environment/
March 27: In choosing Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, Trump elected an administrator who
as attorney general of Oklahoma sued the agency he now leads multiple times
over environmental regulations. The Sierra Club commented after Pruitt was
confirmed that "the arsonist is now in charge of the fire department."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/26/politics/kushner-american-innovation-white-house/index.html
March 28: Trump wants to end the Clean Power
Plan
https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/03/28/trump-wants-end-clean-power-plan-we-can-push-back?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=ggad_cleanenergy_upd_dmt&utm_medium=cpc&utm_id=1513935355&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvO2JhuL72AIVSJ7ACh0qmQugEAAYBCAAEgJtAfD_BwE
March 28:
On February 2, in one of his first acts as Senate
majority leader of the 115th Congress, Mitch McConnell ushered through the
repeal of the
Stream Protection Rule ...
Back to top
President Donald Trump ordered his
administration to begin dismantling his predecessor’s climate change policies on
Tuesday with a sweeping directive to end what he called a "crushing attack" on
the U.S. economy — by halting efforts to reduce the carbon pollution of electric
utilities, oil and gas drillers and coal miners.
... since that much-ballyhooed vote in early
February, this is how many new coal jobs have been created in Appalachia: Zero.
And there are no signs there are any coming anytime soon: Tyler White,
president of the Kentucky Coal Association, couldn’t say how many jobs he
thought the repeal of the rule would create, “but I can tell you that it
definitely will help stop the bleeding.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/donald-trump-obama-climate-change-policies-236570
March 30: Six environmental groups have sued President Trump's administration
over its approval of a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/326488-greens-sue-trump-over-keystone-xl-approval
March 29: House Votes to Restrict EPA's Use
of Scientific Studies ... The bill limits the EPA to using only data available
to the public, which would exclude medical records and some peer-reviewed
research.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-03-29/house-votes-to-restrict-epas-use-of-scientific-studies
March 30: Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan (R) is slamming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) for downgrading protections for manatees in his home state,
calling the agency announcement Thursday a “huge disappointment.” “The decision
to weaken protections under the Endangered Species Act threatens the survival of
the manatee, one of Florida’s most beloved animals,” Buchanan said in a
statement. “It needs to be reversed.”
http://thehill.com/regulation/energy-environment/326601-florida-republican-blasts-fws-for-changing-manatee-protections
March 29: Today, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt signed an order denying a
petition that sought to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide crucial to U.S.
agriculture.
“We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that
rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment,”
said EPA Administrator Pruitt. “By reversing the previous Administration’s steps
to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to
using sound science in decision-making – rather than predetermined results.”
The public record lays out serious scientific concerns and substantive process
gaps in the proposal. Reliable data, overwhelming in both quantity and quality,
contradicts the reliance on – and misapplication of – studies to establish the
end points and conclusions used to rationalize the proposal.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-administrator-pruitt-denies-petition-ban-widely-used-pesticide-0
Back to top
Undated: Chlorpyrifos (CPS), sold under many brandnames, is an
organophosphate pesticide used to kill a number of
pests including insects and worms.[6]
It is used on crops, animals, and buildings.[6]
It was introduced in 1965 by
Dow Chemical Company. It acts on the nervous system of insects by
inhibiting acetylcholinesterase. Toxicity results in more than 10,000 human
deaths a year.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos
March 29: Battle Lines Being Drawn Over Keystone XL Again ... Pending
Nebraska permit could prove a deal-breaker; Environmentalists and Indigenous
groups promise direct action, legal resistance
On March 23, ironically almost 27 years to the day following the historic
Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, Donald Trump issued a presidential permit
to Canadian company TransCanada for its controversial Keystone XL pipeline,
formally restarting a fight over the pipeline that first kicked off when it was
first proposed in 2008.
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/battle_lines_being_drawn_over_keystone_xl_again/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvL6rjt_72AIV07jACh3OtQ71EAMYAiAAEgJV7vD_BwE
March 30: Even the nation’s most notorious polluters are
uncomfortable with Donald Trump’s new executive action rolling
back Barack Obama’s policies to reduce carbon emissions,
protect the environment, and restrict the construction of new coal plants.
Yesterday it was ...
ExxonMobil that came out against the Trump administration, hailing the Paris
climate accord as “an effective framework for addressing the risks of climate
change.” ... Now, General Electric—which the Political Economy Research
Institute
said in 2000 was “the fourth-largest corporate producer of air pollution in
the United States” and which the E.P.A.
has
listed as a major contributor of Superfund toxic waste sites—has also
weighed in.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/corporate-america-not-down-with-trumps-plan-to-kill-the-planet
March 31:Manatees Escape The Endangered List — But Maybe Too
Soon
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/31/522228960/manatees-escape-the-endangered-list-but-maybe-too-soon
April 4: A scientist who coauthored some of the most
influential
studies on air pollution says President Trump's recent executive order to
thwart the Environmental Protection Agency's climate-change plan will
ultimately cut short thousands of American lives.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that when implemented, [Obama's]
plan would prevent 3,600 premature deaths a year. In addition, the agency said,
it would prevent 1,700 heart attacks, 90,000 asthma attacks and 300,000 missed
days of work or school a year.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/politics/scientist-clean-power-plan-repeal-trump/index.html
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April 10:
Coal
isn’t coming back although with real investment
in carbon capture and sequestration, it could continue to contribute to a clean
energy economy. In 2006, coal accounted for nearly half of all electricity in
the US; by 2016, it was down to 29%. The decrease in coal by the electricity
sector is because of economic reasons, as it has been
outcompeted by low cost natural gas. Building new wind and utility scale
solar generation is less expensive than building new coal plants,
even without subsidies.
http://www.ourenergypolicy.org/will-trumps-plan-to-bring-back-coal-jobs-work/?campaignid=761163003&adgroupid=42626621198&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzMnL-IeB2AIVRIF-Ch1S_Q18EAMYASAAEgI-7fD_BwE
April 12: Fossil fuel lobbyists and environmentalists are set for a legal
battle over whether the Trump administration will defend regulations on chemical
plant safety.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/politics/scientists-sue-epa-chemical-lawsuit/index.html
April 27: Trump aims to expand U.S. offshore
drilling, despite low industry demand
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-drilling/trump-aims-to-expand-u-s-offshore-drilling-despite-low-industry-demand-idUSKBN17U05E
April 28: Trump Orders Review of Offshore
Oil Drilling Rules ... The order Trump signed on Friday directs Secretary of the
Interior Ryan Zinke to review the five year plan for offshore drilling that
President Barack Obama enacted just days after the 2016 presidential election.
That plan allowed for limited offshore drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico and
off the coast of Alaska, but put off limits any drilling operations in the
Arctic and in parts of the Atlantic.
https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-orders-review-offshore-oil-drilling-rules/
April 28: Trump signs executive order to
expand drilling off America’s coasts: ‘We’re opening it up.’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/28/trump-signs-executive-order-to-expand-offshore-drilling-and-analyze-marine-sanctuaries-oil-and-gas-potential/?utm_term=.f781edc385ac
April 28: Trump’s order could test Florida’s
resolve against offshore oil-drilling
https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/2017/04/28/trumps-oil-drilling-order-tests-floridas-resolve/101044490/
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May 3: Environmental and Alaska Native
Groups sued ... to maintain a U.S. ban on oil and gas exploration in most of the
Arctic Ocean and select areas of the Atlantic after President Donald Trump took
steps to put the waters back in play for offshore drilling.
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-groups-sue-drilling-arctic-atlantic.html
May 3: Last March,
The Obama Administration rejected offshore opportunity. Instead of allowing
seismic mapping and possible energy production along the outer-continental shelf
of the eastern seaboard, then-Interior-Secretary Sally Jewel announced that the
mid-Atlantic would be left out of the five-year leasing plan.
The landscape changed last week, however, when President Trump signed an
executive order seeking to replace the Obama Administration’s oil and gas
development plan. Though the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management’s denial of
leases for waters south of the North Carolina coast remains in effect until
2022, President Trump’s executive order shows renewed interest in offshore
opportunity for the future.
https://palmettopromise.org/renewed-interest-offshore-opportunity/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvO2JhuL72AIVSJ7ACh0qmQugEAMYAyAAEgL0BvD_BwE
May 14: Great Pacific Garbage
Patch..........cleanup to begin
A Dutch foundation aiming to rid the world's oceans of plastic waste says it
will start cleaning up the huge area of floating junk known as the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch within the next 12 months, two years earlier than planned.
The Ocean Cleanup aims to use long-distance floating booms that act like
coastlines to gather plastic bag, bottles and other waste as it drifts on or
near the surface of the water while allowing sea life to pass underneath.
The Ocean Cleanup, founded by Dutch university dropout Boyan Slat, announced
that testing of the first system will start off the US West coast by the end of
the year and barriers will be shipped to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between
California and Hawaii in the first half of 2018, two years ahead of the
organization's earlier schedule.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/great-pacific-garbage-patch-cleanup-to-begin.233298/
May 20: Trump on Fracking ...
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/eia-forecast-fossil-fuels-remain-dominant-energy-source/
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May 24: It’s true that in March 2017,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a
$100 million grant to the state of Michigan to upgrade the drinking water
infrastructure in Flint, which experienced a lead pollution
crisis potentially affecting as many as 100,000 people beginning in 2014.
There has been some dispute, however, over whether this ought to be labeled a
“Trump accomplishment” or an “Obama accomplishment.”
... funding for the grant came from a bill signed by President Obama in 2016,
though the monies weren’t officially awarded until after he left office ...
https://www.snopes.com/everything-donald-trump-accomplished/
June 1: [Trump] has denied the existence of
climate change and appointed as the head of the EPA a man who
doesn't accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are causing
global warming by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Obama decried Trump's decision in a
statement released Thursday.
"The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created," the former president said.
He
added: "I believe the United States of America should be at the front of the
pack. But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this
Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I'm
confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more
to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we've
got."
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/01/530748899/watch-live-trump-announces-decision-on-paris-climate-agreement?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20170601&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews
June 2: Trump's top environment official
refuses to say if President believes in climate change ... Before he was
president, Donald Trump called global warming an 'expensive hoax' ... He did not
make such comments during his announcement of his decision on the Paris accord,
hailing himself as “someone who cares deeply about the environment”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-climate-change-paris-agreement-scott-pruitt-epa-refuses-answer-president-believes-latest-a7770291.html
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June 1: John Kerry, Obama's secretary of
state and a key player in crafting the Paris agreement, also denounced the U.S.
withdrawal as "a self-destructive step that puts our nation last."
"This is an unprecedented forfeiture of American leadership which will cost us
influence, cost us jobs, and invite other countries to walk away from solving
humanity's most existential crisis," he
said in a
statement Thursday. "It isolates the United States after we had united the
world."
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/01/530748899/watch-live-trump-announces-decision-on-paris-climate-agreement?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20170601&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews
June 1: Barack Obama had used his authority as president to join the
Paris accord without a vote in Congress. That means Trump can remove the U.S.
from the accord without a vote. But it will take awhile: Under the terms of the
agreement, he wouldn't actually be able to withdraw until November 2020.
http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/trump-poised-announce-decision-paris-climate-agreement
June 1: ...
in a
statement, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy applauded the move, calling
it the "right call":
"The previous Administration refused to recognize that
private innovation and American natural gas have achieved more than
government mandates and misguided international agreements—and that naiveté
led President Obama to sign a climate deal that will impose great costs with
little gain. President Trump made the right call in leaving a deal that
would have put an unnecessary burden on the United States."
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/01/530748899/watch-live-trump-announces-decision-on-paris-climate-agreement?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20170601&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews
June 1: The Secretary-General remains
confident that cities, states and businesses within the United States -- along
with other countries -- will continue to demonstrate vision and leadership by
working for the low-carbon, resilient economic growth that will create quality
jobs and markets for 21st century prosperity.
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2017-06-01/statement-attributable-spokesman-secretary-general-us-decision
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June 1: Canada is “deeply disappointed” by
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate
accord, but will push ahead with measures to fight global warming, Environment
Minister Catherine McKenna said on Thursday.
“Canada is deeply disappointed at the U.S. position. The Paris agreement is a
good deal for Canada and it’s a good deal for the world,” a grim-faced McKenna
told reporters. “No one country can stop action on climate change.”
https://af.reuters.com/article/africaTech/idAFL1N1IY21I
June 5: Trump proposes seismic tests for
Atlantic oil drilling
According to a Federal Register
notice ... the National Marine Fisheries Service is asking for Marine Mammal
Protection Act permits allowing five companies to conduct the seismic surveys
with the air guns, which are considered dangerous to certain types of marine
wildlife.
The Obama administration had blocked that testing.
“The American people own these Atlantic waters. This is the first step towards
drilling them,” said Michael Jasny, director of the Marine Mammal Protection
Project for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“It's a license for energy companies—in their relentless drive for more fossil
fuels—to devastate marine wildlife.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/336389-trump-proposes-seismic-tests-for-atlantic-oil-drilling
July 10: ... there's growing evidence that a
sixth mass extinction is unfolding, according to scientists who track species
around the globe. In a new study, researchers say the current mass
extinction is even "more severe than perceived" and amounts to
"biological annihilation" affecting thousands of species.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sixth-mass-extinction-biological-annihilation/
July 11: Earth Experiencing Sixth Mass Extinction: Study ...
Scientists describe the number of vertebrate species experiencing population
declines as “biological annihilation.”
“We’ve got this stuff going on that we can’t really see because we’re not
constantly counting numbers of individuals,” Stanford’s Anthony Barnosky, who
did not participate in the study, tells
CNN. “But when you realize that we’ve wiped out 50% of the Earth’s
wildlife in the last 40 years, it doesn’t take complicated math to figure out
that, if we keep cutting by half every 40 years, pretty soon there’s going to be
nothing left.”
https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49841/title/Earth-Experiencing-Sixth-Mass-Extinction--Study/
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July 11: "... population crashes can ...
lead to inevitable extinctions ... but currently, scientists say that species
are going extinct at roughly 100 times what would be considered normal --
perhaps considerably more.
"The good news is, we still have
time ... [The losses and the mass extinction study results] show it is time to
act. The window of opportunity is small, but we can still do something to save
species and populations."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/11/world/sutter-mass-extinction-ceballos-study/index.html
July 13: Eni US will
become the first energy company allowed to explore for oil in federal waters off
Alaska since 2015 after the Trump administration this week approved a drilling
plan on leases the company has been sitting on for 10 years.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alaska-eni/trump-administration-approves-eni-plan-to-drill-offshore-alaska-idUSKBN19Y2MV
August 1: The
Trump administration has announced that it would waive
environmental and other laws and regulations that impede the first phase of
construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico
border.
https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/trump-admin-waives-environmental-laws-to-allow-usmexico-border-wall-construction/1114033/?next
August 1: This is not the first time federal
agencies have gotten around environmental and land management laws for border
security. Congress has given Homeland Security the authority to do so. DHS used
that power five times from 2005 to 2008 when the Bush administration constructed
physical barriers on the border.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/540965349/dhs-waives-environmental-laws-for-border-wall-construction
August 17: Conservation Groups Oppose
Trump’s Push for New Offshore Oil Drilling ... Administration moves to scrap
offshore-leasing plan, disregarding public opinion and stark scientific
conclusions on climate change
https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2017/conservation-groups-oppose-trump-s-push-for-new-offshore-oil-drilling
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August 24: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke
recommended Thursday that President Trump alter at least three national
monuments established by his immediate predecessors, including two in Utah, a
move expected to reshape federal land and water protections and certain to
trigger major legal fights.
In a report Zinke submitted to the White House, the secretary recommended
reducing the size of Utah’s Bears
Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as well as Oregon’s
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, according to multiple individuals briefed on
the decision.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/08/24/interior-secretary-recommends-trump-alter-a-handful-of-national-monuments-but-declines-to-reveal-which-ones/?utm_term=.4720d812aff5
Our Clean Power Plan
images from Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/reduce-emissions/what-is-the-clean-power-plan#.Weu1DN1odkh
October 9: Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Scott Pruitt announced Monday his agency's plans to withdraw the
Clean Power Plan, the sweeping Obama-era rule regulating greenhouse gas
emissions.
Michael Brune, executive director
of the Sierra Club, said Trump and Pruitt are launching "one of the most
egregious attacks" on public health and climate safety.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/politics/environmental-protection-agency-scott-pruitt-clean-power-plan/index.html
Back to top
October 10: The US is set for a fresh battle
over climate change after the Trump administration moved to tear up the
country’s primary policy to lower emissions and stave off dangerous global
warming.
Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York,
tweeted: “The EPA can repeal the Clean Power Plan but not the laws of
economics. This won’t revive coal or stop the US from reaching our Paris goal.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/10/trump-climate-change-clean-power-plan-fightback
October 10: The San Luis Obispo City Council
has resolved to oppose any new oil and gas drilling off the California Coast, in
response to
an executive order signed in April by President Donald Trump that could open
the door to offshore leases.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article178143481.html
October 12: More than 40 congressional
Democrats sent a letter to the White House expressing "deep concern" over the
Environmental Protection Agency's recent proposal to "reverse clean water
safeguards" for an area of Alaska that is home to the world's most valuable wild
salmon fishery.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/lawmakers-demand-answers-after-cnn-s-epa-probe/html_8571103e-285d-572a-98e4-045b62ca8118.html
October 12: "Scott Pruitt is signing up to
kill the largest salmon run on Earth and thousands of fishing jobs," [Senator
Maria] Cantwell said ... "The Northwest can't afford him or his job
killing ideas. We can't let Pruitt pollute our clean water and throw away
thousands of jobs because one mining CEO received special treatment."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/11/politics/congressional-letter-bristol-bay-salmon/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist
October 15: Interior looks at
behind-the-scenes land swap to allow road through wildlife refuge ... The
project in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge has
long been a priority for Alaska officials, who say it is a “lifesaving” link
needed to connect a remote Aleutian Islands town of 925 people with the rest of
the state. The proposal, which entails turning federal land over to a tribal
corporation, fits neatly with the Trump administration’s broader goal of giving
more control to local communities like King Cove.
... environmentalists, several native Alaskan tribes and other critics warn that
the road could disrupt the habitats of a variety of animals, most notably
migratory birds that use the refuge as a crucial stopover on their marathon
journeys along the Pacific Coast of North America. And allowing the project
would violate the founding principle of federal wilderness — areas that are to
remain pristine, off-limits to vehicles — and would set a precedent that could
endanger other refuges, opponents say.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interior-looks-at-behind-the-scenes-land-swap-to-allow-road-through-wilderness-refuge/2017/10/15/c6458380-aeb7-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.f77c24f638b7
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October 13: Yesterday, President Donald
Trump announced the nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White to chair the Council
on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) released the
following statement:
“Kathleen Hartnett White is a great choice to help the administration realign
priorities at CEQ. Over the past eight years, this executive office has
attempted to use the National Environmental Policy Act as a tool to stonewall
any project with a federal nexus. I look forward to working with her on a long
overdue streamlining of NEPA and other efforts to improve the efficiency and
responsiveness of the administrative state to people.”
https://naturalresources.house.gov/newsroom/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=403155
October 13: The White House on Thursday
announced the selection of Kathleen Hartnett White of Texas to serve as chair of
the Council on Environmental Quality. White served under former Texas Gov. Rick
Perry, now Trump's energy secretary, for six years on a commission overseeing
the state environmental agency.
White was fiercely critical of what she called the Obama administration's
"imperial EPA" and pushed back against stricter limits on air and water
pollution. She is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a
conservative think-tank that has received funding from fossil-fuel companies
that include Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Chevron.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/trump-to-nominate-climate-doubter-as-environmental-adviser-1.3631517
October 27: Environmental groups celebrate, call on Mexico to drop case against US ... After
several negative rulings against the United States for its strong standards for
the Dolphin Safe tuna label,
the World Trade Organization yesterday agreed that the US is in compliance with
WTO Free Trade regulations. Environmental groups, including the International
Marine Mammal Project (IMMP), are celebrating the ruling, calling it a big
victory for dolphins.
The US standards for use of the Dolphin Safe label require that the tuna fishing
vessels not encircle any dolphins with nets.
industry to deliberately target, chase, and surround the dolphins with nets in
order to get to the tuna.
Fishermen in this region use speedboats to herd dolphin pods, which are herded
for miles until they are exhausted. Then they use massive, mile-long purse seine
nets to surround the exhausted dolphins and the tuna that swim beneath. Many
dolphins die from injuries, physiological stress, and drowning. Meanwhile, baby
dolphins, who are often left behind during the chase, starve or are eaten by
predators. The same pod of dolphins can be chased and netted again and again.
More than 7 million dolphins have died after being trapped in nets since this
fishing method was introduced in 1957.
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/win_for_dolphins_wto_reverses_decision_us_dolphin_safe_tuna_label/
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October 28: Six months after President
Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at increasing offshore oil and gas
drilling, the White House has received recommendations on which of
America’s national marine sanctuaries and ocean monuments should be eliminated
or have their boundaries reduced in size.
Among the 11 areas that could be affected and opened to oil and gas drilling,
deep sea mining or other commercial activities are parts of Monterey Bay, and
the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries off the
Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino coasts.
The public, however, isn’t allowed to see the report.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/27/trump-gets-report-that-could-open-national-marine-sanctuaries-to-oil-drilling/
November 14: Twenty-five years ago, 1,500
scientists signed a letter warning humanity that it needed to change its ways in
order to save the planet. A new letter, marking the anniversary of that first
message, has so far been signed by 15,000 scientists, and they say the reason
for the tenfold increase is that things have gotten much, much worse.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/11/14/15000-scientists-just-sent-dire-warning-to-humanity.html
November 16:
On November 15, 2017, the
Senate added a measure to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. It would add $1.1 billion in revenues over 10 years. But drilling isn't
cost effective until oil prices reach $70 a barrel.
https://www.thebalance.com/trump-s-tax-plan-how-it-affects-you-4113968
November 20: The EPA would see the biggest
cuts [in current proposals]. It would receive about $7.9 billion in annual
funding, which is $149.5 million less than current levels. The House voted to
cut funding for the EPA by $528 million, and Trump proposed slashing the
agency's budget by $3.6 billion.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/361250-senate-bill-would-cut-epa-funding-by-150m
December 1: Zinke
seeks protections for public lands in his home state while attacking Utah
monuments ... Interior Secretary has a two-faced approach to public lands
protection.
https://thinkprogress.org/zinke-supports-montana-monuments-2610fc1d6351/
December 4:
Trump Slashes Size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Monuments
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/us/trump-bears-ears.html
Back to top
December 7: Ryan Zinke: Why we shrunk the
monuments
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/07/opinions/why-we-shrunk-the-monuments-zinke/index.html
Undated [as of December 2017]: Deep cuts to
EPA proposed by the Trump administration would jeopardize Americans' health and
safety by reducing the funds that would address pollution including lead, toxic
sites, contaminated water, and much more.
EPA has been making our country cleaner for decades but there is more work to do
Up to ten million homes across America still get their drinking water through
lead pipes – in Flint, Michigan and across the nation.
According to the American Lung Association,
125
million Americans live in counties with unhealthy air quality
We need to be moving forward, not backward – especially when it comes to
protecting children, the elderly, and others who are vulnerable to lung and
heart disease.
EPA accounts for just 0.22 percent, or $8 billion, of a $4 trillion
federal budget. The agency's budget already has been repeatedly cut by Congress
in recent years and is already, in real dollars, close to its lowest level in
forty years.
https://www.edf.org/deep-epa-cuts-put-public-health-risk
December 15:
60 Environmental Rules on the Way Out Under Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html
December 18: For months, staffers in the
Office of Water had been in help-desk mode, fielding calls from states
implementing a federal rule that set new limits on water-borne pollution
released by coal-fired power plants. The rule on what is known as “effluent” had
been hammered out over a decade of scientific study and intense negotiations
involving utility companies, White House officials and environmental advocates.
The EPA had checked and rechecked its calculations to make sure the benefits of
the proposed change outweighed the cost to the economy.
The announcement from EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency was
considering undoing the rule. “This action is another example of EPA
implementing President Trump’s vision of being good stewards of our natural
resources, while not developing regulations that hurt our economy and kill
jobs,” the release said.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-trump-regulatory-rollback-epa
Back to top
December 19:
Trump Administration Rolls Back EPA Plan to Restrict Dangerous
Household Chemicals ... The three chemicals —
TCE,
NMP, and
methylene chloride — are used to strip furniture, remove grease, and dry
clean clothes. All three are clearly dangerous: The EPA has deemed TCE a
carcinogen “by all routes of exposure,” NMP is a
developmental toxin,
and methylene chloride has killed at least
56 people since 1980, many of whom were stripping
bathtubs.
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/19/trump-administration-rolls-back-epa-plan-to-restrict-dangerous-household-chemicals/
December 22: Brain Drain At the EPA ... More
than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President
Donald Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration
nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels
last seen during the Reagan administration.
https://www.propublica.org/article/brain-drain-at-the-epa
December 22: Trump's Busy Year On Energy And
Environment
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/22/570548757/trumps-busy-year-on-energy-and-environment
December 29: This Land Was Your Land ...
Sixteen environmental protections that the Trump administration dismantled in
2017.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2017/12/_16_environmental_protections_that_the_trump_administration_dismantled_in.html
December 31: How Scott Pruitt turned the EPA
into one of Trump’s most powerful tools
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/under-scott-pruitt-a-year-of-tumult-and-transformation-at-epa/2017/12/26/f93d1262-e017-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html?utm_term=.e7b4330123cf
-- 2018 --
Back to top
Undated: This map provides general locations
of major fires burning in California. The fire locations are approximates. Some
of the fires on the map are not in the jurisdiction of CAL FIRE and are under
the command of another local or federal fire agency.
http://www.fire.ca.gov/general/firemaps
January 4:
Trump Seeks to Open Most
U.S. Coastal Waters to New Drilling ... The Trump
administration is proposing to open almost all U.S. coastal waters to oil
drilling, including those off California and Florida where activists have fought
for decades to spare delicate ecosystems from oil spills.
The proposal released Thursday will go far beyond President Donald Trump’s April
order directing the Interior Department to consider auctioning oil and gas
leases in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico.
The plan is unprecedented in its scope; no prior administration has ever
proposed so many lease sales in a single five-year offshore drilling program.
Environmentalists and coastal residents have fought offshore drilling that they
say poses too great a risk of oil spills befouling beaches, harming marine life
and jeopardizing tourism.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-04/trump-seen-urging-all-u-s-coastal-waters-be-opened-to-drilling
January 4: Trump administration plan would
widely expand drilling in U.S. continental waters
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/04/trump-administration-plans-to-allow-drilling-off-all-u-s-waters/?utm_term=.19069ff4dfba
January 4:
Trump's Offshore Drilling Plan—What You Need to Know
... A new federal plan would expose 90 percent of coastal waters to oil drilling
efforts. Here's what that means.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/trump-administration-announces-offshore-drilling-plans-spd/
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January 14: A bipartisan group of New Jersey
elected officials has teamed up to ask the Trump administration to stop talks of
allowing offshore drilling off the coast of their state.
Incoming Democratic Gov.-elect Phil Murphy and outgoing Republican Gov. Chris
Christie of the Garden State joined together with Democratic Sens. Cory Booker
and Bob Menendez to
send a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke expressing their stance on
the issue of offshore drilling.
"We write to demonstrate that when it comes to protecting New Jersey's coast,
New Jersey speaks with one voice, united in opposition to allowing drilling off
our shores," the letter reads. "It is for these reasons that we urge you to
immediately withdraw consideration of the Atlantic from the Five-Year Program."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/flake-denounce-trump-media-attacks-stalinist-senate-speech-n837556
January 18: Will Trump's Oil Drilling
Mistake Cause Another Deepwater Disaster?
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-oil-drilling-expansion-deepwater-disaster-774508
January 23: Making sense of President
Trump’s energy plan ... Experts say his plan to bring back coal and increase oil
and gas defies reason.
http://www.hcn.org/articles/making-sense-of-president-trumps-energy-plan
January 26: The Trump administration
announced Thursday it is doing away with a decades-old air emissions policy
opposed by fossil fuel companies, a move that environmental groups say will
result in more pollution. The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it was withdrawing the "once-in
always-in" policy under the
Clean Air Act, which dictated how major sources of hazardous air pollutants
are regulated.
Under the EPA's new interpretation, such "major sources" as coal-fired power
plants can be reclassified as "area sources" when their emissions fall below
mandated limits, subjecting them to differing standards.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-clean-air-policy-trump-administration-fossil-fuel-companies/
Back to top
January 27: The EPA made a surprise move
that could protect the world's largest salmon fishery ... In a surprise
reversal, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it is withdrawing its
plan to suspend environmental protections for an area of Alaska that is home to
the world's most valuable wild salmon fishery.
The EPA proposed last year to "reverse clean water safeguards" for the Bristol
Bay watershed, paving the way for a massive gold and copper mine to be built in
the region.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/27/politics/epa-alaska-salmon-fishery/index.html
February 3: The White House has plans to
withdraw its nominee for the Council on Environmental Quality, Kathleen Hartnett
White,
the Washington Post reported. A White House official confirmed to Axios that
she is withdrawing her nomination.
Why it matters: Hartnett White was a controversial nominee, because she
has made remarks in the past that contradict "the conclusion of an overwhelming
number of scientific experts" and their findings on climate change, the Post
said.
https://www.axios.com/white-house-w-1517698686-9d03f15d-b482-41c2-9f84-997356362808.html
February 9: Trump signed a landmark bill
that could create the next big technologies to fight climate change
Donald Trump is no champion of the environment. But this morning, in signing a
bill to continue funding the US government, he also ended up supporting two
pieces of new legislation that could create the next big technologies to fight
climate change.
Trump found himself in this situation because of the peculiar way in which the
US government works. Every so often, both houses of the US congress have to pass
a bill to continue funding the government. This bill needs a super majority,
which means that even though Republicans have a majority in both houses, they
have to get some Democrats on their side.
The budget bill passed today included a lot of extra defense spending. In return
for scratching the Republicans’ back, Democrats secured a slew of spending and
tax credits on health care, education, and clean energy. Some of these had huge
Republican support, such as the 45Q tax credits for carbon capture and 45J
nuclear-power production credits.
“This is a stunning one-two punch for the future of US-led clean and reliable
energy,” says Rich Powell, director of ClearPath, an organization that lobbies
for clean energy.
https://qz.com/1203803/donald-trump-signed-a-landmark-bill-to-support-carbon-capture-and-nuclear-power/
Back to top
March 11: Havasupai
children write letters to Trump, asking for end to canyon mining
The Havasupai – the name means people of the blue-green waters – are one of the
smallest tribes in North America, and they’ve battled canyon mining for decades.
Supai is nestled within Havasu Canyon, which is adjacent to Grand Canyon
National Park. The tiny village was established in 1880 and is accessible only
by foot, horse, mule or helicopter. Bracketed by red rock canyons, it sits on
the southern bank of the Colorado River, 56 miles from Canyon Mine atop the rim.
But Havasupai officials fear mine contaminants will seep into the groundwater,
harming their children and destroying the tribe’s way of life.
https://kdminer.com/news/2018/mar/11/havasupai-children-write-letters-trump-asking-end-/
March 23: 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' is
massive floating island of plastic, now 3 times the size of France
The giant accumulation of plastic called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
contains at least 79,000 tons discarded plastic, covering an area of about
617,800 square miles (1.6 million square kilometers), according to a study
published Thursday in Scientific Reports.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/great-pacific-garbage-patch-massive-floating-island-plastic/story?id=53962147
Undated:
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/
March 27:
Fewer whales have been seen in their traditional feeding spots off the coasts of
New England and Canada (because warming ocean temperatures are affecting their
traditional prey).
Pruitt has been criticized for a sweetheart deal on a condo rental, lavish
travel expenses and big pay raises for top aides.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-epa-chief-pruitt-doing-great-job-totally-under-siege-n863361
April 6:
... Walden Pond, the once-pristine jewel that
inspired the American naturalist and philosopher in the mid 1800s, has been
befouled by generations of swimmers urinating in the water, according to
a new study.
So much so that it is wrecking the ecosystem and devastating the fish population
of the pond some 25 miles west of Boston that Thoreau immortalized in his
best-known work, “Walden; or, Life in the Woods.”
April 11:
April 21:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/scope-great-barrier-reef-s-massive-coral-bleaching-alarms-scientists-n867521
May 10:
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency met Tuesday with
Cindy Wynne and Wendy Hartley, whose young sons recently died from
inhaling methylene chloride, a chemical commonly found in paint strippers sold
across the country. They wanted to know why Pruitt
delayed an Obama-era rule banning that chemical, which has killed
dozens of people who inhaled it over the last decade.
Back to top
The women and their families reportedly came out of the meeting
disappointed. But on Thursday, the EPA
released a statement saying it “intends to finalize” the rule
prohibiting methylene chloride from being used in paint and coating removal
products. That doesn’t mean the rule is final yet; that will happen “shortly,”
according to the EPA’s release. “EPA is working diligently to implement
the new law get the most modern and safe chemicals to market, and to ensure the
safety of existing chemicals,” it read.
May 10:
Gov. Jerry Brown has signed an executive order that aims to reduce the dangers
of wildfires following some of the deadliest and most destructive blazes in
state history.
The order calls for accelerating forest management procedures such as cutting
back dense stands of trees and setting controlled fires to burn out thick brush.
Brown wants to double the forest area managed by such practices to 500,000 acres
(781 square miles) within five years.
Brown's order also calls for streamlining the process of allowing private
landowners to thin trees and encouraging the building industry to use more
innovative wood products.
His office said a Forest Management Task Force will be convened in coming weeks
to help implement the order.
May 16:
The Environmental Protection Agency administrator has shown a knack for
verbal gymnastics, particularly in his handling of
myriad ethics scandals. But he flopped on Wednesday while being
grilled by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Back to top
Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico asked Pruitt
about reports that he ordered his motorcade to
deploy lights and sirens to cut through D.C. traffic. “There
are policies in place that govern the use of lights” that “were
followed to the best of my knowledge,” Pruitt replied. Asked again whether
he ordered sirens, Pruitt
said he did “not recall that happening.” Udall then
revealed an internal EPA email in which Pruitt’s former head of security
said Pruitt “personally encouraged” the use of sirens.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/148442/senate-gave-scott-pruitt-third-degree-burns
May 17:
"I'm a simple guy so I have a simple remedy when people like Pruitt ignore or
hide pollution: if you don't have a problem with Americans drinking contaminated
drinking water, drink it yourself until you tap out or resign," Schwarzenegger
wrote.
May 24:
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/18/trumps_epa_doesnt_want_you_to
May 29: Hunters in Alaska could be allowed
to kill black bear cubs and wolf or coyote pups in their dens, set bait for
brown bears, and kill caribou while they are swimming on national wildlife
preserves in the state.
The proposal represents a
National Park Service push to defer to states in situations where there is
conflict between state and federal regulations.
The issue ultimately comes down to a difference between state and federal
policies. The National Park Service
proposed a rule last week that would reverse a ban on the hunting practices
that Alaska wanted to allow on the state level, even though national wildlife
groups have called the effort "inhumane."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-push-expand-access-public-lands-leads/story?id=55392471
June 1: EPA paid $1,560 for 12
fountain pens
A close aide to Scott Pruitt last year ordered a set of 12 fountain pens that
cost the Environmental Protection Agency $1,560, according to agency documents.
Each $130 silver pen bore the agency's seal and Administrator Pruitt's
signature, according to the documents, which were obtained by the Sierra Club
through a Freedom of Information Act request.
"Yes, please order," an aide wrote.
The order from the Washington shop
Tiny Jewel Box also
included a set of journals that cost $1,670.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/01/politics/pruitt-epa-pens/index.html
June 4: EPA's Pruitt told aide to
obtain 'old mattress' from Trump hotel, perform other personal tasks
According to testimony released Monday, Pruitt also asked top aide Millan Hupp
to search for apartments and book his personal trips.
Ranking Democratic Reps. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Gerry Connolly of
Virginia, in the letter addressed to House oversight committee chair Rep. Trey
Gowdy, R-S.C., accused Pruitt of "multiple abuses of authority" for using agency
aides to complete personal tasks, which is prohibited under federal ethics
rules.
Taking aim at
two water-conservation laws signed last week by Gov. Jerry Brown, a
conspiratorial far-right financial blog called Zero Hedge reported Sunday that
Californians could be fined $1,000 a day if they bathe and wash their clothes on
the same day.
Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, author of AB 1668, accused Zero Hedge,
Nunes and others of spreading "pure fiction."
"I wish people would stop scaring people with this sort of thing," she said.
Others raised concerns about the millions of gallons of water the plant could
pull from Lake Michigan, though the company has announced plans to invest in
technology intended to reduce its water use.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-trump-foxconn-groundbreaking-wisconsin-20180628-story.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/05/scott-pruitt-resigns-as-epa-chief-trump-announces.html
August 9:
August 16:
The Trump directive makes no mention of climate change.
The Trump administration announced a new policy to fight wildfires, doubling
down on its assertion that the best response is better forest management rather
than focusing on climate change.
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said Thursday that the U.S. Forest Service
would increase the amount of logging and controlled burns on federal lands, to
reduce the amount of fuel available to drive increasingly severe forest fires.
He brushed off questions about whether climate change was making those fires
worse.
August 16:
More humans plus drier weather equals more fires.
Forecasters predicted the water will continue to rise through the weekend at the
L.V. Sutton Power Station. Duke Energy spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said the
utility doesn't believe the breach poses a significant threat of increased
flooding to nearby communities.
Sheehan said the company can't rule out that ash might be escaping the flooded
dump and flowing through the lake into the river.
"This case is not about the ethics of hunting, and it is not about solving
human- or livestock-grizzly conflicts,” the judge [U.S. District Judge Dana
Christensen] wrote.
The agency didn’t consider the impact of hunting the Yellowstone grizzly on five
other bear populations in the Lower 48 States — as it was required to — and its
analysis of threats to the species was "arbitrary and capricious," Christensen
wrote.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/federal-judge-restores-grizzly-protections-canceling-bear-hunt-n912741
Engineering glaciers could slow sea-level rise at the source.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/vast-wall-antarctica-could-slow-rising-seas-some-scientists-are-ncna913456
The sentencing comes after the Bandidos president was found guilty of directing
a violent racketeering and drug trafficking operation.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bandidos-biker-gang-president-sentenced-life-prison-n913561
Calls Plan to Rewrite Rules Bad for Birds and Business
“There is zero demand or desire from the American people for gutting bird
protections and putting nearly every bird in this country at greater risk,” said
David O’Neill, National Audubon Society’s Chief Conservation Officer. “But the
Administration is doubling down on its efforts to weaken a law that has
motivated businesses to adopt simple practices that have saved billions of
birds. The hundred year old law is part of Audubon’s legacy and it is our
responsibility to mobilize our more than one million members to protect it.”
https://www.audubon.org/news/audubon-vows-fight-trump-administrations-rollback-bird-protections
October 19:
The true cost is a sliver of that.
November 11:
https://www.redding.com/story/news/local/fires/2018/11/11/california-fires-camp-woolsey-donald-trump-tweets/1967717002/
November 12:
"The president's message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to
the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to
those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines,"
The
Camp fire in Northern California’s rural Butte County had killed 42 people
and destroyed more than 6,400 homes as of Monday, making it the state’s most
deadly and destructive fire in history. Authorities said more than 200 people
remained unaccounted for. The fire started on Nov. 8, 2018 in a wooded area near
the town of Paradise.
Meanwhile, in Southern California, the
Woolsey fire in Ventura and Los Angeles counties was blamed for the death of
two people and had destroyed an estimated 435 structures. That blaze started on
a suburban hillside, not a forest.
The fire kept growing Tuesday, though firefighters got some reprieve as winds
died down.
Nearly 60 deaths have been reported in connection with the Camp and Woolsey fire
A president who prizes and craves loyalty more than any other attribute, Trump
has divided states into ones that voted for him and the ones that didn’t, and
found that last group wanting. In California, that has meant state officials are
having to fight not only killer fires but also the combustible rhetoric coming
from the Oval Office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-trump-again-blames-california-for-a-natural-disaster-adding-to-his-public-denunciations-of-the-strongly-democratic-state/2018/11/12/811626de-e6ab-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.abd512a026b1
FOUR WILDFIRES are blazing across the US state of California, destroying
thousands of structures and killing more than 40 people. What started the
California fires?
November 15:
The company filed an 8-K document with the Securities and Exchange Commission
saying that if it was found liable for the blaze its insurance will not be able
to cover the damages.
"While the cause of the Camp Fire is still under investigation, if the Utility's
equipment is determined to be the cause, the Utility could be subject to
significant liability in excess of insurance coverage that would be expected to
have a material impact on PG&E Corporation's and the Utility's financial
condition, results of operations, liquidity, and cash flows," the filing said
Tuesday.
Hundreds of others are living in tent cities with no idea when they'll be able
to return home. Members of the Paradise community held a town hall meeting
Thursday night to begin the long road to recovery with many signing up for FEMA
relief.
November 17:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/officials-order-evacuations-camp-fire-threatens-8000-acres/story?id=59065896
November 19:
This weekend, Trump managed to insult a venerated military veteran, mangled the
name of a wildfire-scarred town that he had just left, confused the president of
Finland by making strange comments about leaf raking and, like a grade-schooler,
attempted to taunt a critic in Congress with a naughty play on his name. All in
just 48 hours.
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said in an interview published Sunday that
although President Donald Trump claimed the European leader told him Finns
rarely have forest fires because they
"spend a lot of time raking," he doesn't recall discussing that with Trump
when they met last weekend in Paris.
Niinistö told the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, a CNN affiliate, that the
subject of raking was never brought up in his conversations with Trump. He said
that they did discuss the California wildfires when they met, and that he told
Trump "we take care of our forests."
The Finnish President told the newspaper that he intended to convey that
although Finland is covered by forests, the nation has a good monitoring system
which has helped to prevent catastrophic wildfires. He added that he only sees
raking in his own yard, and surmised that raking perhaps came to Trump's mind
after he saw firefighters raking some of the burned areas in California.
https://www.wired.com/story/california-fire-survivors-brace-for-debris-filled-mudslides/
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/20/asia/indonesia-whale-plastic-scli-intl/index.html
November 20:
In a Tuesday conference call with reporters, Zinke criticized "lawsuit after
lawsuit by, yes, the radical environmental groups that would rather burn down
the entire forest than cut a single tree or thin the forest."
Asked which groups, Zinke declined to name names.
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/20/669540904/storm-clouds-on-the-horizon-promise-wildfire-relief-and-stir-new-fears
https://abcnews.go.com/US/relentless-california-wildfires-leave-86-dead-500-unaccounted/story?id=59262994&cid=clicksource_interest_band
President Donald Trump blames state officials for not doing enough to
prevent the [California] fires. But is that true? ...
“I was with the president of Finland and he said, ‘We have a much different,
we’re a forest nation.’ He called it a ‘forest nation,’ and they spend a lot of
time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem,”
Trump said.
Actually, Finland does not rake the forest — and
Finns made sure President Trump knew it on social media.
Finland is 70-percent forest, and home to some of the world’s largest paper
companies. The country also has a vast forest road network, an early warning
system and aerial surveillance.
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/11/21/reality-check-rake-america-great-again/
Democrats ramp up pressure to act in wake of most sobering government analysis
yet
The
Trump administration attempted to downplay the stark findings of its own
climate change assessment, as Democrats sought to pressure the White House to
avert looming economic and public health disaster.
The
US National Climate change assessment, the work of 300 scientists and 13
federal agencies, was released on Friday afternoon. It found that wildfires,
storms and heatwaves are already taking a major toll on Americans’ wellbeing,
with climate change set to “disrupt many areas of life” in the future.
The voluminous report, which warns of hundreds of billions of dollars lost, crop
failures, expanding wildfires, altered coastlines and multiplying health
problems, represents the most comprehensive and sobering analysis yet of the
dangers posed to the US by rising temperatures.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/24/climate-change-report-trump-administration-democrats-reaction
Scientists say that the naturally migratory turtles are heading farther north as
climate change warms the planet's oceans. Some are now summering in the Cape Cod
Bay, where they become trapped "by the Cape's hook-shaped geography," according
to the sanctuary.
"Stranding season" typically lasts from about Thanksgiving to Christmas. This
year's numbers have already passed what's typical for a year — and the total
might climb to 1,000 sea turtles before the end of December.
In the last four decades, cold-stunned sea turtles have been on the rise,
peaking with 1,250 animals in 2014, according to the sanctuary.
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/25/670705681/more-than-200-sea-turtles-stunned-by-cold-wash-up-off-cape-cod-this-week
The 13-10 vote in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee lines up
Bernard McNamee, a senior Department of Energy official, for a vote on the
Senate floor. The vote was along party lines, except for Sen.
Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who broke with his party to support McNamee.
Since Trump nominated him earlier this year, McNamee has faced fierce opposition
from Democrats and environmentalists. They say his history working for the
conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Trump administration —
including a key role in pushing a bailout for coal and nuclear plants that FERC
itself rejected — goes against the expectation that FERC is impartial and
fuel-neutral.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/418426-senate-panel-advances-trumps-energy-nominee-over-dem-opposition
Asked why he was skeptical of a federal report detailing the significant
consequences of climate change, Trump said: "One of the problems that a lot of
people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we're not
necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water, and it's right
now at a record clean."
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/28/671521901/fact-check-trumps-claims-about-record-clean-u-s-air
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/02/666296302/meet-greeces-marine-trash-collectors-diving-to-keep-their-sea-beautiful
December 3:
"If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction
of much of the natural world is on the horizon."
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/03/672893695/david-attenborough-warns-of-collapse-of-civilizations-at-u-n-climate-meeting
December 6:
The Trump administration plans to eliminate an Obama-era requirement that new
coal-fired power plants have expensive technology to capture carbon dioxide
emissions.
This latest administration effort to boost fossil fuel industries comes as
leaders from nearly 200 countries are
meeting in Poland to discuss how to keep greenhouse gasses out of the
atmosphere. And amid reports that
CO2 emissions are rising again, as well as the
administration's own report that climate change is causing more severe
weather more frequently and could eventually hurt the U.S. economy.
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/06/674255402/trumps-epa-plans-to-ease-carbon-emissions-rule-for-new-coal-plants
The Trump administration has promised vast changes to U.S. science and
environmental policy—and we’re tracking them here as they happen.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/
December 6:
The long-anticipated
proposals, released Thursday by the Bureau of Land Management, would revise
a sweeping conservation effort made under the Obama administration, allowing for
more development in the chicken-sized bird's vast habitat.
The Interior Department says the changes are being made to enhance cooperation
with Western states, some of which were critical of the Obama-era plans, and
that protections for the bird will remain intact.
The United States Department of the Interior issued a
notice late last month signaling its intent to “jump-start development” in
the National Petroleum Reserve in
Alaska (NPR-A), part of a 23-million-acre stretch of oil-rich natural
habitat that makes up the largest tract of undisturbed land in the United
States.
The notice, the latest effort by the
Trump administration to
increase oil exploration and mining activities on ecologically sensitive federal
and tribal landscapes, “envisions clean and safe development in the NPR-A while
avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production,
constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation.”
The Washington Post
reported that it will take “about a year” to create a new plan for
extracting oil reserves from NPR-A, according to Joe Balash, assistant secretary
of land and minerals at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The 11-million-acre NPR-A site represents roughly half of a larger wildlife
refuge originally set aside by President Warren G. Harding in 1923. It also
falls within the ancestral homelands of the Gwich’in Nation of Alaskan Natives,
an indigenous community that uses NPR-A lands to hunt porcupine caribou herds
that frequent the area.
Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering
Committee,
told The Washington Post, “The [Trump] administration has made my
people a target. We will not stand down. We will fight to protect the porcupine
caribou herd…every step of the way.”
https://archpaper.com/2018/12/as-global-ecocide-approaches-trump-seeks-more-oil-in-alaska/
December 11:
Vast amounts of wetlands and thousands of miles of U.S. waterways would no
longer be federally protected by the Clean Water Act under a new proposal by the
Trump administration.
The proposal, announced Tuesday at the Environmental Protection Agency, would
change the EPA's definition of "waters of the United States," or WOTUS, limiting
the types of waterways that fall under federal protection to major waterways,
their tributaries, adjacent wetlands and a few other categories.
With lawsuits likely and a 60-day public comment period ahead, the
administration's proposal is far from becoming law.
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/11/675477583/trump-epa-proposes-big-changes-to-federal-water-protections?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20181211&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews
President Trump’s torrent of misleading statements and flat-out lies has an army
of journalists working 24/7 to set the record straight. To help those who focus,
as we do, on climate, energy, and other environmental issues, NRDC will call out
Trump whenever he distorts the facts about such matters. Here, we offer our
inaugural edition of Trump Lies. We expect to update it regularly.
https://www.nrdc.org/trump-lies
December 15:
In one of the final acts of Mr. Kelly’s tenure, his team told Mr. Zinke
that he should leave by year’s end or risk being fired in a potentially
humiliating way, two people familiar with the discussion said.
December 14:
The open letter includes a signature from a former high-level Mobil Oil
executive.
December 14:
The unanimously approved legislation puts the nation’s capital at the vanguard
of climate policy — even as the federal government is going in reverse.
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Trump quietly issued an executive order to expand logging on public land
on the grounds that it will curb deadly wildfires
The executive order instructs the secretaries of agriculture and interior to
consider harvesting a total of 4.4 billion board feet of timber from forest land
managed by their agencies on millions of acres, and put it up for sale. The
order would translate into a 31 percent increase in forest service logging since
2017.
January 14:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/01/14/the-energy-202-what-you-need-to-know-about-trump-s-quiet-order-to-fight-wildfires/5c3bcd781b326b66fc5a1c35/?utm_term=.0fac3531a4cf
Wheeler, also a former Republican Senate aide on environmental issues, has been
acting administrator since July, when former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt
resigned amid a host of ethics controversies.
Since Wheeler began leading the agency, he has continued work on many of the
same priorities as his predecessor, including looking to roll back Obama-era air
and water pollution regulations.
But Wheeler has brought a level of stability to the agency that didn't exist
under Pruitt, keeping a relatively low profile while continuing to make progress
towards meeting the Trump administration's policy goals for the agency.
He has met often with industry representatives. Wheeler attended or held more
than 50 meetings with representatives of companies or industry groups regulated
by the EPA between April and August of 2018, a
CNN review of his internal schedules found.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/28/politics/andrew-wheeler-confirmation/index.html
Families of people who have died after inhaling paint strippers that contain
methylene chloride and
chemical safety advocates have called for the products to be banned because
of the risks.
While the rule announced today responds to some of advocates' concerns, it's a
step back from a full ban proposed under the Obama administration. The EPA will
ban the products from being sold to the public in stores or online but will
still allow contractors and other professionals to use it. Critics say that
still puts workers at risk of inhaling a dangerous amount of fumes if they're
working in an unventilated area.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/epa-bans-public-sale-paint-stripper-connected-accidental/story?id=61715315
March 15: Trump’s Methylene Chloride Rule
Leaves Workers Exposed To Deadly Chemical
EPA abandons proposed ban on commercial uses of paint-stripping chemical linked
to dozens of workers’ deaths
n January 2017, EPA acknowledged those risks and proposed a ban on commercial
and consumer uses of methylene chloride paint strippers. Since then, at least
four people — including two workers — have died from methylene chloride
exposure. However, despite repeated promises to finalize that proposal, the
Trump administration reversed course and excluded workers from its final
methylene chloride rule.
The methylene chloride lawsuit filed by LCLAA, represented by Earthjustice, and
the Natural Resources Defense Council is currently pending in the United States
District Court for the Southern District of New York.
https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2019/trump-s-methylene-chloride-rule-leaves-workers-exposed-to-deadly-chemical
May 7: A million species are at risk of
extinction. Humans are to blame.
It will likely take millions of years for the Earth to recover from the
biodiversity crisis.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/5/7/18531171/1-million-species-extinction-ipbes-un-biodiversity-crisis
May 16:
Colorado is on the leading edge of technology to fight wildfires and is
testing new and potentially life-saving tools.
The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control Center of Excellence is
partnering with Honda to test an autonomous ATV.
"(It) is essentially an ATV with advanced sensors and different attachments,"
said the Center's Garrett Seddon.
Firefighters battling wildfires can typically carry up to 50 pounds of gear,
plus hoses and more equipment with them in hot, steep and dangerous terrain. The
goal is for the ATV to carry a lot of that equipment, plus medical supplies, to
keep firefighters safe.
https://kdvr.com/2019/05/16/colorado-tests-new-technology-to-battle-wildfires/
May 22: Tanker collision sends thousands of
gallons of gas product leaking into Houston shipping channel
https://abcnews.go.com/US/tanker-accident-leaves-thousands-gallons-gas-product-leaking/story?id=62975485
November 24: Greenland Is Not For Sale. But
It Has The Rare Earth Minerals America Wants
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/24/781598549/greenland-is-not-for-sale-but-it-has-the-rare-earth-minerals-america-wants
-- 2020 --
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