Young Republican Climate Activists Split Over How to Get Their Voices Heard in November’s Election
22 September
Climate
The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. filo / Getty Images
By Ilana Cohen
Four years ago, Jacob Abel cast his first presidential vote for Donald Trump. As a young conservative from Concord, North Carolina, the choice felt natural.
But this November, he plans to cast a "protest vote" for a write-in candidate or abstain from casting a ballot for president. A determining factor in his 180-degree turn? Climate change.
<p>Climate didn't become a voting issue for Abel until months after the 2016 election. As a college freshman at Seton Hall University, he found himself increasingly frustrated by lackluster Republican responses to an issue now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/21/across-the-globe-millions-join-biggest-climate-protest-ever" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">leading</a> millions to march in the streets. </p><p>Abel felt that his party's future, like that of his generation, depended upon it addressing climate change with the appropriate urgency.</p><p>While his progressive counterparts helped propel a "<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c686caa2-a8c5-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04" target="_blank">Squad</a>" of climate leaders into Congress, Abel advocated for market-driven climate solutions like carbon pricing as a spokesperson for republicEn, a right-leaning climate advocacy organization. </p><p>"The Green New Deal was actually a big catalyst for a lot of young Republicans coming forward and pushing for serious Republican solutions" on climate change, said Abel. </p><p>Momentum on the left stirred new conversations on the right, as young conservatives banded together in hopes of sustaining both their party and the planet. Their cries for climate action helped open older Republicans' eyes to the risk of losing young voters, and a seat at the table in future climate policymaking, if the GOP didn't change its tune.</p><p>"Over the next 10 years," Abel said, he "wants to see Republicans come together with Democrats to come to a realistic solution," along with Republicans proposing "more and more solutions" of their own, including around what Abel considers a critical "middle ground" measure to advance decarbonization—carbon pricing.</p><strong><strong></strong></strong>
<p>"Because we're still kind of relatively new to actually taking this topic seriously and proposing policy," said Abel of the GOP, "I think our policy response could be more robust and more detailed."</p><p>Only a decade ago, Abel's story might have been a novelty. Now, it's commonplace. From <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wildfires-west-coast-death-toll-burn-2020-09-15/" target="_blank">raging</a> wildfires on the West Coast to Hurricane Sally's massive <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54174831" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flooding</a> in the South, climate disasters are politicizing young people across the ideological spectrum who have experienced them first hand. </p><p>Younger Republicans are much more engaged with climate change than their parents and grandparents, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The program's research <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/do-younger-generations-care-more-about-global-warming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shows</a> young Republicans are more likely than older ones to believe in human-caused global warming and to support climate action. </p><p>Frustrated by party leadership that doesn't <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/24/millennial-and-gen-z-republicans-stand-out-from-their-elders-on-climate-and-energy-issues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">represent</a> their call for urgent climate action and public discourse that discounts their views, young Republicans also seem more willing to pose their own climate solutions. They don't want to see a World War II-style mobilization; they want pragmatic proposals advancing private sector innovation. </p><p>The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. While some young Republicans who prioritize the issue of climate change remain loyal to Trump and others turn to Biden, a growing number like Abel are not supporting either candidate. </p><p>Given <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump's thin margin of victory in 2016</a>, young conservatives who choose not to vote for either major presidential candidate may help Biden just as much as those who vote for him over Trump, Leiserowtiz said, depending on the state they vote in. Millennials and Gen Zers will <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comprise</a> 37 percent of eligible voters in November, which gives them vast electoral influence, if they vote.</p><p>If youth show up in force to oust Trump from office, their votes could provide a "powerful warning sign" for the GOP, Leiserowtiz said. It would affirm that for Republicans to win the youth vote and have a path to the White House moving forward, they must embrace climate action now. </p>
Fractures Among Young Climate Conservatives
<p>While young conservatives have united around the urgency of climate change, they remain divided over how to bring their concerns to the ballot box. Some embrace right-wing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-attacks-republican-convention/2020/08/24/434e5b46-e66d-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html" target="_blank">attacks</a> painting Biden as a "tool of the left" and find his climate agenda "radical." Others can't find a way to justify voting for Trump, even if it means breaking with their party.</p><p>Patrick Mann from Orange County, California, voted for Trump in 2016. But today, he's leading Aggies for Joe at Texas A&M University and is co-founder of Texas Students for Biden. </p><p>Mann grew up watching wildfires ravage his home state, nearly forcing his family to evacuate in 2017. The GOP is failing to "meet the moment" for climate action, Mann said. He's hoping Biden will deliver on a promise to "<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2020/01/06/joe-biden-democrat-president-iowa-caucus-restore-soul-our-nation/2806422001/" target="_blank">restore the soul of our nation</a>." </p><p>Taylor Walker from Pensacola, Florida, is also determined to make her voice heard on climate, including by casting her first-ever vote for president—but not for Biden.</p><p>Walker, a statewide campus coordinator for the conservative environmental advocacy group American Conservation Coalition, felt compelled to act on climate change after seeing the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/gulfspill-impacts-summary-IP.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lasting environmental and economic damage</a> the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wreaked on her home state. As a practicing Christian, Walker feels a "responsibility from God to steward the environment," which means fighting climate change while protecting industry. </p><p>She lauded Trump's <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/06/22/trump-tweets-full-endorsement-of-desantis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">support</a> of Ron DeSantis' run for Florida Governor in 2018. Walker appreciated DeSantis' <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-01-11/florida-gov-desantis-signs-executive-order-to-protect-states-waters" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ambitious environmental vision</a> and said he "passed quite a few green initiatives in the first few months of his term." The governor's environmental <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article239258123.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">record</a> since has been controversial, with DeSantis earning dismal ratings from the Sierra Club and <a href="https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/ron-desantis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">League of Conservation Voters</a>. </p><p>Walker also praised Trump's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/08/reversal-trump-ban-oil-drilling-off-coasts-florida-georgia-south-carolina/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recent</a> commitment to banning offshore drilling on the state's coasts, which came two years after he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/04/trump-administration-plans-to-allow-drilling-off-all-u-s-waters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proposed</a> vastly expanding oil and gas drilling in U.S. continental waters. The move "shows a good faith investment" in finding clean energy alternatives, Walker said.</p><p>Walker said she'd examine both major presidential candidates' platforms and records on climate policy up until Election Day, but she doesn't think there's much, if anything, the Biden campaign could do that would convince her to swing left. If Trump can help pivot the GOP in greener directions, she said, "then more power to him."</p>
A False Equivalency
<p>Young climate conservatives may fear climate denial and delayed climate action, but more than that, they fear the growing political momentum around the Green New Deal, the massive spending it entails and <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/" target="_blank">Biden's citing of it</a> as a "crucial framing for meeting the climate challenges we face."</p><p>Many don't want to split with their party to support a Democrat whose <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/757220130/joe-biden-on-bipartisanship-gun-control-and-regrets-over-inaction-after-a-traged" target="_blank">allegedly bipartisan intentions</a> they doubt. If stymieing what they consider a radical green agenda means re-electing a climate change denying president, so be it. </p><p>"I'm scared of climate change, but I'm also scared of the Green New Deal and what it means for America," said Ben Mutolo, a republicEN spokesperson and junior at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. </p><p>Mutolo felt encouraged by former Ohio Governor John Kasich's <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/08/17/kasich-speech-to-democratic-convention-follows-years-of-building-conservative-credentials/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">appearance</a> at the Democratic National Convention, but he still struggles to see himself voting for Biden. Though the candidate paints himself as a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-12/harris-biden-different-generation-similar-political-instinct" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">centrist,</a> Mutolo believes he's "cozying up to the ultra-progressive left." </p><p>Mutolo, who wants to see market-based climate solutions like a carbon tax, feels torn between a candidate whose climate plan relies on taking an "<a href="https://joebiden.com/environmental-justice-plan/#" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">All-of-Government approach</a>," and one with no efforts to reign in global warming at all. <span></span></p><p>Leiserowitz said he appreciated how a conservative might feel Biden's climate plan "doesn't jive with their limited government, free-market approach."</p><p>But he sees a strong distinction between voting for a presidential candidate with a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/biden-climate-plan.html" target="_blank">$2 trillion climate plan</a> that includes large renewable energy investments, which have <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/politics-global-warming-april-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bipartisan support</a>, and a candidate trying "to take the country in the opposite direction, towards more fossil fuels."</p><p>Equating the two seems "hard to square rationally," said Leiserowtiz. But most people don't vote rationally. Research <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15515820/donald-trump-democracy-brexit-2016-election-europe" target="_blank">shows</a> they vote based on their social and political identities, not policy positions, and are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3834737/" target="_blank">influenced</a> by messaging from their social circles.<br></p><p>As someone ready to talk climate solutions, rather than debate science, Mann, the Texas A&M student, has struggled to connect with Republican peers supporting Trump. He believes that people concerned about climate change have a moral imperative to support Biden. "Voting for someone who took us out of the Paris Agreement, you're not going to get progress on climate change," said Mann. "Trump is not making America a leader on this." </p><p>Given the vast threat posed by climate change, Mann said, a vote withheld from Biden is just as problematic as a vote for Trump. </p><p>Mann knows he can't change people's minds, but that won't stop him from trying. "All I can do is plant ideas in their mind of why it's important" to elect Biden now and put climate leaders into office beyond this November, he said. "Hopefully, those grow."</p><p>While some young climate conservatives like Mann are engaging their peers in discussions about the presidential election, others like Walker are more concerned with raising awareness of market-driven climate solutions or getting out the vote for local and Congressional races.</p><p>Whatever their course of action, the chance to help shape climate policy for a critical next four to eight years isn't lost on any of these young climate conservatives. How they cast their ballots, and in what numbers, may solidify for the right a reality already made clear on the left—political survival now goes hand in hand with efforts to stabilize the climate and invest in the futures of today's youth and those of generations to come. </p>
<p><em><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org" target="_blank">Inside Climate News</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20092020/young-republicans-climate-change-biden-trump-voting" target="_blank"></a></em></p><p><em>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2647767066#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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WHO Releases Plans for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution as U.S., China and Russia Opt Out
22 September
Health + Wellness
Headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva amid the COVID-19 outbreak on Aug. 17, 2020. FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP via Getty Images
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday that 64 high-income nations have joined an effort to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine fairly, prioritizing the most vulnerable citizens, as Science reported. The program is called the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or Covax, and it is a joint effort led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
<p>The 64 high-income countries bring the total number of participating countries up to 156, but their participation is crucial to financing the 2 billion doses that the WHO hopes to purchase and distribute before the end of 2021, according to <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/21/64-high-income-nations-join-effort-to-expand-global-access-to-covid-19-vaccines-but-u-s-and-china-do-not/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">STAT News</a>.</p><p>The 156 economies participating in Covax make up 64 percent of the global population.</p><p>"COVAX is now in business: governments from every continent have chosen to work together, not only to secure <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/vaccines">vaccines</a> for their own populations, but also to help ensure that vaccines are available to the most vulnerable everywhere," said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, in a WHO <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/21-09-2020-boost-for-global-response-to-covid-19-as-economies-worldwide-formally-sign-up-to-covax-facility" target="_blank">statement</a>. "With the commitments we're announcing today for the COVAX Facility, as well as the historic partnership we are forging with industry, we now stand a far better chance of ending the acute phase of this pandemic once safe, effective vaccines become available."</p>
<p>The United States, Russia and China have not agreed to join Covax. The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration plans to withdraw from the WHO by next July so it refuses to participate in a WHO-led campaign, as STAT News reported. China has not said if it will participate or not, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/coronavirus-vaccine-covax-who/2020/09/21/d21c7b4a-f9d3-11ea-a510-f57d8ce76e11_story.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>.</p><p>"COVID-19 is an unprecedented global crisis that demands an unprecedented global response," said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. "Vaccine nationalism will only perpetuate the disease and prolong the global recovery. Working together through the COVAX Facility is not charity, it's in every country's own best interests to control the pandemic and accelerate the global economic recovery."</p>
<p>At a briefing on Monday, Ghebreyesus denounced vaccine nationalism again, according to The Washington Post. "The race for vaccines is a collaboration, not a contest," he said to a gathering of reporters. "This is not charity. It's in every country's best interest. We sink or swim together."</p><p>Once a vaccine candidate reaches all of its endpoints for safety and efficacy, the WHO's plan will be implemented in two phases under a "fair allocation mechanism." The first phase has two discrete parts. After enough doses of a successful candidate are produced, each participating country will receive enough doses for 3 percent of their population. That first batch would go to health care and social care workers on the frontlines of the pandemic. After that first batch is distributed, a second set of doses will be distributed equally so 20 percent of the population can be inoculated. The second set of doses will be for vulnerable populations like the elderly and people with complicating health conditions, according to Science.</p>
<p>The second phase will distribute vaccine doses by need rather than by equal distribution. Countries that take part in Covax will receive vaccines based on how desperately they are needed. To determine urgency, Covax will look at the transmission rate, whether other diseases like flu are spreading rapidly, and if a healthcare system is seeing its hospitals and intensive care units overwhelmed, as Science reported.</p><p>"Providing each country with enough doses to start protecting the health system and those at higher risk of dying is the best approach to maximize the impact of the small quantities of vaccines," said Mariângela Batista Galvão Simão, the WHO's assistant director general for access to medicines and health products, as The Washington Post reported.</p><p>While the first phase of the plan may not address the most dire and urgent situations, the equal distribution of the vaccine in proportion to population is meant to encourage more countries to participate in Covax, according to The Washington Post.</p><p>"It's a very pragmatic and expedient way of trying to put forward a simple plan and will not ignite a food fight among different member states in the first phase," said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as The Washington Post reported.</p>
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Former Pence Aid Endorses Biden, Says Trump Cared More About Re-election Than Stopping Coronavirus
18 September
Politics
In an ad released by Republican Voters Against Trump, former coronavirus task force member Olivia Troye roasted the president for his response. Republican Voters Against Trump / YouTube
Yet another former Trump administration staffer has come out with an endorsement for former Vice President Joe Biden, this time in response to President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
<p>In an ad released by Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT) Thursday, a former homeland security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, as well as his top aide on the White House coronavirus task force, accused the president of caring more about his chances of reelection than the pandemic.</p><p>"Towards the middle of February, we knew it wasn't a matter of if Covid would become a big pandemic here, it was a matter of when," the aide, Olivia Troye, said in the video, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/politics/former-pence-aide-coronvirus-task-force-slams-trump/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>. "But the President didn't want to hear that, because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year, and how was this going to affect what he considered to be his record of success?"</p>
<div id="af97a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="998a352f5cc7ff389416d2b3276d97c9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1306685541220524046" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">NEW AD: @OliviaTroye was @VP's lead staffer on COVID-19. She put her heart & soul into the job.
After a while she… https://t.co/Erfsf9W6cY</div> — Republican Voters Against Trump (@Republican Voters Against Trump)<a href="https://twitter.com/RVAT2020/statuses/1306685541220524046">1600373084.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Troye also said she witnessed Trump dismiss the severity of the new disease.</p><p>"It was shocking to see the president saying that the virus was a hoax, saying that everything's OK when we know that it's not," Troye said. "The truth is, he doesn't actually care about anyone else but himself."</p><p>Troye's video comes about a week after the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-coronavirus-woodward-tapes-2647565763.html" target="_self">release of tapes</a> in which Trump acknowledged to journalist Bob Woodward that he did in fact understand the severity of the virus, but downplayed the risks to the public in order to prevent panic. The disease has now sickened more than 6.6 million Americans and killed almost 200,000, according to Friday morning figures from <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" target="_blank">Johns Hopkins University</a>.<br></p>
<p>In another shocking revelation, Troye recalled an extremely callous remark Trump had made about the new disease.</p><p>"Maybe this Covid thing's a good thing," Troye claimed the president said during a meeting. "I don't like shaking hands with people. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people."</p><p>Troye continued by reflecting that "those disgusting people" were the same people who supported the president and who he claimed to care about, as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/olivia-troye-pence-advisor-endorses-biden-coronavirus-task-force/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CBS News reported</a>.</p><p>"If the president had taken this virus seriously, or if he had actually made an effort to tell how serious it was, he would have slowed the virus spread, he would have saved lives," Troye said.</p>
<p>The White House responded by saying that Troye, who left the administration in late July, was merely lashing out at her former employers.</p><p>"I haven't read her comments in any detail, but it reads to me like one more disgruntled employee who's left the White House and now has decided to play politics during an election year," Pence told reporters, as CNN reported. "I think my staff has indicated that she made no comments like that when she was serving on our team here at the White House coronavirus task force."</p><p>White House spokesperson Judd Deere said that Troye never attended private meetings with the president and that her statements were inaccurate, as CBS News reported. And White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1306747024210001922" target="_blank">tweeted</a> a letter Troye sent to the coronavirus task force upon her departure in which she praised its members for their efforts.</p>
<div id="2a391" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2ec3a912ad5dfd294d10417281f42254"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1306747024210001922" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Interesting departure letter from a disgruntled former detailee who typically sat in the overflow room of task forc… https://t.co/wWBvf1Vusx</div> — Kayleigh McEnany (@Kayleigh McEnany)<a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/statuses/1306747024210001922">1600387743.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>However, POLITICO pointed out that the letter was addressed to the task force and did not mention Trump, while Troye's video criticized Trump specifically. In the ad, Troye maintained that serving on the task force was the "honor of a lifetime," but she felt her efforts were undermined by Trump's decisions.</p><p>"I put my heart and soul into this role every single day," she said in the ad, as POLITICO reported. "But at some points I would come home at night, I would look myself in the mirror and say, are you really making a difference? Because no matter how hard you work or what you do, the president is going to do something detrimental to keeping Americans safe."</p><p>Fellow task force member and top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that Troye was a "good person" and "important to the team," as CBS News reported.</p>
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USDA and Meatpacking Industry Collaborated to Undermine COVID-19 Response, Documents Show
17 September
Politics
The USDA and the meatpacking industry worked together to downplay and disregard risks to worker health during the COVID-19 pandemic. RGtimeline / Getty Images
By Brett Wilkins
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the meatpacking industry worked together to downplay and disregard risks to worker health during the Covid-19 pandemic, as shown in documents published Monday by Public Citizen and American Oversight.
<p>The <a href="https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020-OSEC-04055-F_2nd-Interim_Item-1_Redacted.pdf?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=f7bf3f03-ce98-4df4-9c45-f44d9a6a5890" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">documents</a>, which the groups obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, reveal that a week before President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/28/catastrophic-harm-feared-trump-uses-emergency-powers-keep-meat-packing-plants-open" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">issued his controversial executive order </a>in April to keep meatpacking plants open—overriding closure orders from local health officials—a leading meat industry lobby group drafted a proposed executive order that was strikingly similar to Trump's directive.</p><p>North American Meat Institute president Julie Anna Potts drafted the document, which invoked the Korean War-era Defense Production Act in proposing a presidential proclamation that orders "critical infrastructure food companies continue their operations to the fullest extent possible."</p><p>The documents also show that the North American Meat Institute repeatedly requested that USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue discourage workers who were afraid to return to work from staying home, that meatpacking plants asked the USDA to intervene on multiple occasions when state and local governments either shut them down over health and safety concerns or sought to impose worker health and safety standards, and that pork producer and food processing giant Smithfield Foods repeatedly requested that the USDA "order" it to reopen its meat processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota—even though the agency lacks the legal authority for such a move.</p>
<div id="13077" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="11b9fe5ff48ebc437353df6df9c2c892"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1305915938148147205" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Just a week before the Trump administration issued an executive order aimed at keeping meat packing plants open, th… https://t.co/DkbXgPm4YR</div> — ProPublica (@ProPublica)<a href="https://twitter.com/propublica/statuses/1305915938148147205">1600189597.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"While we knew that the meatpacking industry was lobbying the Trump administration to take steps to protect its profits regardless of the cost to workers' lives, the degree of collaboration these documents show is astounding," <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/usda-meatpacking-industry-collaborated-to-undermine-covid-19-response-foia-docs-show/" target="_blank">said</a> Adam Pulver, attorney for Public Citizen.</p><p>"As outbreaks continue to emerge in meatpacking plants, it is stunning to see the cavalier attitude officials took to the health and safety of workers in the early part of the pandemic," Pulver added. "To the extent that the USDA impeded the efforts of state and local governments to contain the virus, the blood of meatpacking workers is on their hands."</p><p>According to July <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6927e2.htm" target="_blank">data</a> from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 23 states reported Covid-19 outbreaks in meat and poultry processing facilities, with 16,233 cases and 86 deaths reported in 239 facilities. Fully 87% of those cases occurred among racial or ethnic minorities. The problem is global, with other countries from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/53137613" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Britain</a> to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-jbs-specialreport/special-report-how-covid-19-swept-the-brazilian-slaughterhouses-of-jbs-worlds-top-meatpacker-idUSKBN25Z1HZ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brazil</a> reporting widespread Covid-19 infection among their meatpackers.</p><p>A common theme connects all of these outbreaks around the world, critics said Tuesday—the prioritization of profit over people.</p>
<p>"During a global pandemic, Americans should be able to trust that public health experts are drafting public health standards, not big businesses looking out for their bottom lines," <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/usda-meatpacking-industry-collaborated-to-undermine-covid-19-response-foia-docs-show/" target="_blank">said</a> Austin Evers, executive director at American Oversight. "This is corruption that came at the cost of lives and safety. Making matters worse, we know now that Trump knew the coronavirus was a deadly threat even while he played it down and took steps he knew were at odds with what experts advised."</p><p>The poultry industry, already the target of a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-03/u-s-chicken-industry-accused-of-conspiring-to-keep-immigrant-wages-down" target="_blank">massive class-action lawsuit</a> alleging some of the biggest animal agriculture corporations in the nation conspired to suppress worker wages and benefits, has been roiled by accusations of worker mistreatment during the pandemic. </p><p>"For us employees that work in production, we are treated like modern-day slaves," Tara Williams, an employee at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Camilla, Georgia, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/meat-plant-workers-us-coronavirus-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told</a> <em>The Guardian </em>in May.</p><p>"Excuse my language, but Tyson really aren't going to give a f**k about us at all," Williams—who has worked at the plant for five years and currently earns $13.55 an hour—said of the $22 billion company after her colleague Elose Willis, who worked at the plant for 35 years, <a href="https://www.loftonfuneralhome.com/obituary/Elose-Willis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">died</a> of Covid-19 in April. </p><p>"It was like they were keeping a secret," Williams said of Willis' death. "It took them about two weeks just to put a picture up, to acknowledge that she had died." </p><p>In related news, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/10/want-know-what-workers-life-worth-america-trumps-osha-fines-meat-company-just-13494" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fined</a> Smithfield's Sioux Falls plant just $13,494 last Thursday for failing to take adequate steps to contain the virus, leading to the infection of more than 1,200 plant employees and the deaths of four plant workers between March and June. Critics said the fine isn't nearly enough.</p>
<div id="36e4c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e7c8048c2755109629a3b3072fcb3261"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1304424041814593539" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Meatpacking union @UFCW, which reps workers at this plant (four of whom died), slams OSHA for the small $13k fine a… https://t.co/tnhfKd89ab</div> — Dave Jamieson (@Dave Jamieson)<a href="https://twitter.com/jamieson/statuses/1304424041814593539">1599833901.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union, which represents Smithfield Foods workers, <a href="https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2020/09/10/osha-fines-smithfield-foods-sioux-falls-south-dakota/5768786002/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=f7bf3f03-ce98-4df4-9c45-f44d9a6a5890" target="_blank">slammed</a> the fine as "insulting and a slap on the wrist."</p><p>"How much is the health, safety, and life of an essential worker worth? Based on the actions of the Trump administration, clearly not much," said UFCW president Marc Perrone.</p><p>"This so-called 'fine' is a slap on the wrist for Smithfield, and a slap in the face of the thousands of American meatpacking workers who have been putting their lives on the line to help feed America since the beginning of this pandemic," Perrone added. </p><p>Other critics, including vegans, vegetarians, and animal rights and environmental advocates argued that the accelerated spread of Covid-19 from meatpacking facilities is but the latest compelling argument in favor of reducing—or eliminating—meat consumption.</p><p>"We know that Covid-19 originated in a meat market and that previous influenza viruses originated in pigs and chickens," People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) <a href="https://www.peta.org/blog/meat-shortage-slaugherhouses-go-vegan/" target="_blank">said</a> in April amid news that a Foster Farms slaughterhouse in Livingston, California was <a href="https://www.peta.org/blog/coronavirus-covid-19-slaughterhouse-meat-concerns/?utm_source=PETA::Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=0420::veg::PETA::Twitter::Workers%20Blame%20Major%20Pig%20Slaughterhouse%20600%20Infected%20COVID-19::::tweet" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ordered closed</a> by local health authorities due to a Covid-19 outbreak that killed eight employees.</p>
<div id="28490" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="48ddd3480a2beb42597d9516ef652f0f"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1252416495990140929" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! @SmithfieldFoods allegedly took NO PRECAUTIONS to protect the safety of its workers, leaving o… https://t.co/viAJ026pLy</div> — PETA (@PETA)<a href="https://twitter.com/peta/statuses/1252416495990140929">1587434336.0</a></blockquote></div><p>"It's not a matter of <em>whether</em> using and killing animals for food will give rise to another disease outbreak—it's a matter of <em>when</em>," said PETA. "There has never been a better, more obvious time for businesses to put an end to their dirty trade of slaughtering animals for their flesh." </p>
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Climate Denier Who Supports Fossil Fuel Emissions Is Named to Leadership Role at NOAA
15 September
Politics
Brent Bozell, Founder and President of the Media Research Center, former Governor Sarah Palin, Dr. David Legates and David Rothbard, Executive Producer of the film and President of CFACT, speak during the "Climate Hustle" panel on April 14, 2016 in Washington, DC. Kris Connor / Getty Images
By Julia Conley
Climate scientists were aghast Monday at the news that David Legates, a University of Delaware professor who has repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus that human activity is causing the climate crisis and has claimed that carbon dioxide emissions are beneficial, has been named by the Trump administration to a top leadership role at the federal government's climate research agency.
<p>Legates was appointed—without the knowledge of several NOAA officials, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/13/noaa-hires-david-legates-climate/" target="_blank">according to </a>one person at the agency—to serve as deputy assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction and will report directly to acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs.</p><p>Gretchen Goldman of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) called the appointment "a slap in the face to NOAA scientists who work daily to conduct and communicate climate science to the public and decision makers."</p><p>"Until now, NOAA has largely evaded the kind of anti-science political appointees that have devastated the EPA and Interior," Goldman<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/13/noaa-hires-david-legates-climate/" target="_blank"> told</a> the <em>Washington Post.</em> "With Dr. Legates we risk seeing the same kind of politicization of science and corruption of ethics."</p>
<div id="67907" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="07b8bffcbfbd7bd0664b0b344cd9882e"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1305343823430770689" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Oh my word. NOAA taps David Legates, professor who questions the seriousness and severity of global warming, for to… https://t.co/CyvTD2OtLS</div> — Kalee Kreider (@Kalee Kreider)<a href="https://twitter.com/kaleekreider/statuses/1305343823430770689">1600053194.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Legates served from 2005 to 2011 as Delaware's state climatologist, and stepped down under pressure from former Democratic Gov. Ruth Ann Minner when it came to her attention that his views on the climate <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/david-legates" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">were</a> "not aligned with those of [her] administration."</p><p>"I am directing you to offer any future statements on this or other public policy matters only on behalf of yourself or the University of Delaware, and not as state climatologist," Minner <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/david-legates" target="_blank">wrote</a> to Legates in 2007 after he wrote an amicus brief in agreement with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which opposed Delaware's attempt to force the federal regulation of greenhouse gases.</p><p>The appointment, which one anonymous NOAA official <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/13/noaa-hires-david-legates-climate/" target="_blank">referred to </a>as a surprising "midnight hire over the weekend," comes as the agency is monitoring the approach of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/14/912658940/sally-is-expected-to-be-a-hurricane-when-it-hits-gulf-coast-tuesday" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hurricane Sally</a>. The storm rapidly strengthened on Monday and was expected to cause an "extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm surge" on the Gulf Coast. </p><p>NOAA's National Weather Service has also been issuing warnings to the west coast about the wildfires that have overwhelmed the region in recent days, killing <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54130785" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more than 30 people</a>. Agency scientists have contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) reports on the climate crisis and the warming of the globe, including the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/08/un-experts-warn-climate-catastrophe-2040-without-rapid-and-unprecedented-global" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2018 study</a> which warned that greenhouse gas emissions will pose an increasing threat to human life if they are not drastically reduced in the next 10 to 20 years. </p><p>The appointment of Legates to help lead the agency undermines that message, critics say, considering he counts among his climate science work a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/13/noaa-hires-david-legates-climate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paper </a>called "The IPCC Reconsidered," a Heartland Institute-funded project which called for more, not fewer, fossil fuel emissions.</p>
<p>"The juxtaposition of the apocalyptic wildfires and the announcement of David Legates' appointment is mind-boggling," Jane Lubchenco, who served as NOAA administrator under President Barack Obama, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/13/noaa-hires-david-legates-climate/" target="_blank">told</a> the <em>Post</em>. "Just at the time when we need continued truth from the nation's lead climate agency, a climate denier is hired. This is a travesty."<br></p><p>In his new role, Lubchenco warned, Legates will "be in a position to squelch the free flow of accurate scientific information to the public, to distort or manipulate scientific findings, curtail monitoring and research, and create an overall chilling atmosphere for the high-quality science and scientists that the nation needs."</p><p>Other examples of Legates' work include a <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/polar-bears-and-climate-change-what-does-the-science-say" target="_blank">2007 paper</a>—partially funded by Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and ExxonMobil—which questioned whether the climate crisis is destroying polar bears' habitats as temperatures in the Arctic rise twice as fast as the global average, and sea ice vanishes at a rate of 4% per decade. </p><p>Along with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Legates spoke in 2016 at a<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/david-legates" target="_blank"> panel discussion </a>on Capitol Hill—when both chambers of Congress were controlled by Republicans—about the documentary "Climate Hustle," which called into question the existence of the scientific consensus regarding human-caused climate change. The panel addressed the question: "Are [scientists] trying to control the climate...or you?"</p><p>Brian Kahn, managing editor of <em>Earther</em>, tweeted about a talk Legates gave at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2018 in which the professor posited that the heating of the planet holds benefit for humans and wildlife, such as the growth of larger crabs.</p>
<div id="46223" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="03188a7c8cff9515eb1acde9829f0496"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1304882129633935360" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">NOAA just hired David Legates, a man who has legitimately said with a straight face that climate change is fine bec… https://t.co/AZh6AY5iaG</div> — Brian Kahn (@Brian Kahn)<a href="https://twitter.com/blkahn/statuses/1304882129633935360">1599943117.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="a0d1d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d84dab8726d0856d3476ea6eed1705c4"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1304884645583089666" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Anyways, here's the crab love CO2 slide from when he gave the talk at CPAC. This man is being paid with the public'… https://t.co/kpQ84CNkZB</div> — Brian Kahn (@Brian Kahn)<a href="https://twitter.com/blkahn/statuses/1304884645583089666">1599943717.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Legates' presentation was a "total cesspool of misinformation about how carbon dioxide is good, actually," tweeted Kahn.</p><p>"He's not just in left field—he's not even near the ballpark," Lubchenco <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/12/912301325/longtime-climate-science-denier-hired-at-noaa" target="_blank">told</a> <em>NPR.</em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/14/travesty-climate-denier-who-has-argued-favor-fossil-fuel-emissions-named-leadership?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams.</a></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A new report reveals President Donald Trump has rolled back at least 30 public protections since declaring a public health emergency over the coronavirus pandemic. Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 2.0
By Brett Wilkins
In the nearly six months since President Donald Trump declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, he has rolled back at least 30 public protections, while proposing changes to at least 20 others, according to a report published Thursday by Public Citizen's Coalition on Sensible Safeguards.
The report—Pandemic Rollbacks: Slashing Safeguards During the Coronavirus—tracks dozens of regulatory rollbacks enacted or proposed by the Trump administration since March.
<div id="4dd61" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fbdc0a617c3c5d28cd82b3c2021679d0"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1304042392274771969" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">SCOOP: Six months after his emergency declaration, Trump has repealed more than 30 public protections that have not… https://t.co/19r1AuV5Pp</div> — Sensible Safeguards (@Sensible Safeguards)<a href="https://twitter.com/goodregs/statuses/1304042392274771969">1599742908.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Noting that Trump "has directed agencies to press forward with his dangerous, unpopular, and corrupt deregulatory agenda as if it's business as usual," the report accuses the president of appearing "eager to take advantage of the crisis and ram through deregulatory policies while the rest of the country is distracted."</p><p>The rollbacks are spread widely across numerous federal agencies, with many occuring at the besieged Environmental Protection Agency. Here is a sampling of some of the administration's more egregious actions:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/13/trump-epa-plows-ahead-mind-bogglingly-stupid-and-destructive-rollback-methane" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Weakening EPA rules</a> on methane emissions. </li><li><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/26/big-banks-couldnt-be-happier-stocks-surge-trump-regulators-gut-restrictions-risky" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Relaxing the Volcker Rule</a>, which was enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to prevent banks from acting like hedge funds. </li><li><a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a33811194/bomb-train-natural-gas-transportation-trump-rule/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reducing regulations on trains</a> transporting extremely flammable materials. </li><li><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/17/pandemic-rages-trump-cfpb-plows-ahead-rules-empowering-predatory-lenders-rip" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Loosening restrictions</a> on predatory payday lending companies. </li><li><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/13/deadly-trump-hhs-scraps-protections-transgender-patients-and-those-seeking-abortions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Revoking</a> Health and Human Services Department nondiscrimination protections for transgender people and people seeking abortions. </li><li><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/26/dark-money-tax-283044" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Easing rules</a> on dark money disclosure by groups including the National Rifle Association and AARP. </li><li><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/02/targeted-strike-against-environmental-and-racial-justice-trump-epa-curbs-state-power" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Limiting states' power</a> to reject fossil fuel projects.</li><li><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21288063/trump-immigration-asylum-border-regulation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Eviscerating protections</a> for asylum-seekers. </li></ul>
<p>Among the administration's proposed rollbacks are: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-administration-moves-repeal-transgender-protections-homeless-shelters-n1232849" target="_blank">revoking protections</a> for unhoused transgender people, <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/trump-administration-proposes-new-limits-protecting-endangered-species-habitat-2020-07-31/" target="_blank">redefining</a> critical wildlife habitats, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/climate/trump-environment-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">revising</a> the Clean Air Act, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/15/steamrolling-rights-people-and-planet-trump-finalizes-rule-weakening-bedrock" target="_blank">weakening</a> pipeline safety rules, and <a href="https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2020/06/12/proposal-threatens-weaken-2016-arctic-drilling-rule/" target="_blank">removing barriers</a> on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Sea.</p><p>"Instead of using their regulatory and enforcement powers to implement a national pandemic response, Trump officials have sabotaged or obliterated essential health, safety, environmental, anti-discrimination, and financial safeguards for the American public," <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/six-months-after-emergency-declared-trump-has-repealed-more-than-30-public-protections/" target="_blank">said</a> Matt Kent, a regulatory policy associate for Public Citizen, in a statement. </p><p>"Nearly 200,000 Americans are dead and more than 6 million have been infected with Covid-19 because of the administration's disastrous response, but Trump's priority is showering giant corporations with deregulatory special favors," Kent added. "It's an appalling betrayal of the American people."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/10/appalling-betrayal-new-report-details-dozens-trump-rollbacks-perpetrated-under-cover?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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States Are Doing What Big Government Won’t to Stop Climate Change, and Want Stimulus Funds to Help
10 September
Politics
Towns like Breckenridge, Colorado, are part of a national organization, Mountain Towns 2030, that's swapping ideas about how to meet a goal of net-zero carbon emissions within a decade. 12019 / Needpix
By James Bruggers
In Maine, state officials are working to help residents install 100,000 high efficiency heat pumps in their homes, part of a strategy for electrifying the state. In California, an in-demand grant program helps the state's largest industry—agriculture, not technology—to pursue a greener, more sustainable future. Across Appalachia, solar panels are appearing on rooftops of community centers in what used to be coal towns.
<p>The Trump administration may have pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, but most states and many rural areas in America have developed their own plans for reducing carbon emissions and moving away from fossil fuels as they maneuver—often aggressively—to address the threat of climate change.</p><p>"Even if the U.S. government has decided to leave the Paris Agreement, we see in the U.S. an enormous movement in favor to climate action," United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with Covering Climate Now on Monday. "We see companies, we see cities, we see states, we see the civil society fully mobilized."</p><p>Many state and local officials, including those in rural areas, hope stimulus funds aimed at helping rebuild economies ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic will support renewable energy and other "climate smart" initiatives that cut carbon emissions, while often creating more jobs in emerging industries than traditional infrastructure spending.</p><p>The plans for decarbonizing America have been sown and exist like seeds in a parched field, waiting for a drenching rain. </p><p>Here are five examples. </p>
In Maine, Federal Funding 'Would Make a Big Difference'
<p>The fingerprints of climate change are all over the state of Maine, from the invasion of temperate species into the rapidly warming Gulf of Maine to summers that are now two weeks longer than they were a century ago. But despite all this change, one thing will stay the same: Winter in Maine will still be cold.</p><p>In a state that uses more home heating oil per capita than anywhere in the nation, Maine's climate hawks are looking to make a major change in the way people heat their homes, and help mitigate climate change at the same time.</p><p>In 2019, Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill with the goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps into homes in Maine by 2025. This would represent nearly a fifth of the homes in the state. </p><p>"It's clearly the electrification strategy," said Hannah Pingree, the state's director of the Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the Future. "Electrify homes, electrify transportation. That's a strong theme of the Climate Council."</p><p>Maine's Climate Council—a group of scientists, industry leaders, local and state officials and residents—is charged with figuring out how Maine will meet a <a href="https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/news/governor-mills-signs-major-renewable-energy-and-climate-change-bills-law-2019-06-26" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">trio of ambitious goals</a>: reducing emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and at least 80 percent by 2050; increasing the state's renewable energy portfolio standard to 80 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050; and making the state carbon neutral by 2045. </p><p>Heat pumps—which also cool homes—draw in air from outside and use the difference in temperature between inside and outside air to keep a home comfortable. They are run on electricity, and can be paired with clean energy sources like solar or wind power to eliminate the carbon footprint of home heating.</p><p>Mills' plan offers incentives for installing the pumps, thanks to state funding that's being supplemented by some federal low-income housing funds. The program is up and running, but it's something that Pingree said could benefit from an infusion of federal funds.</p><p>"The governor's heat pump program is already ambitious and innovative, but to really get to the full scale and take it even further, federal investment would make a big difference," said Pingree, who co-chairs the Climate Council. "Especially when it comes to people's homes, investments in transportation and housing stock, the federal government's participation is extremely helpful and it helps put people to work."</p><p>The heat pump program is part of a bigger picture of state and local governments working to get consumers to move away from using fossil fuels for heating. <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12122019/natural-gas-ban-cities-legal-cambridge-brookline-massachusetts-state-law-berkeley-california" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Some local governments</a> in other states are banning natural gas hookups for new construction, and some electric utilities and clean energy advocates are asking California regulators to enact a <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/california-nears-tipping-point-on-all-electric-building-regulations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">statewide ban</a> as part of the next update of the state's building code.</p><p>Heat pumps are just one part of Maines's strategy, which will likely include a massive expansion of offshore wind and community solar projects and a push to electrify the transportation sector. At a meeting earlier this summer, more than 230 people from six working groups presented ideas to the council—more than 300 actions in all—which are being weighed now.</p><p>"If you look at the recommendations from the working groups, one of the cross-cutting ones is finance. We do need to raise revenue, and we also need the federal government to step up," said David Costello, the clean energy director of the Natural Resource Council of Maine. "It's going to be hard for Maine to implement many of the actions that we'd like to implement without increased funding."</p>California's Grants for 'Climate Smart Agriculture' Are Successful—and Threatened
<p>To say California farm country is central to its ambitious plans to combat climate change seems redundant. The $50 billion agricultural sector is a pillar of the state's economy, the world's fifth largest, encompassing 70,000 farms and ranches. </p><p>With such a vast and vital industry (which includes parts of every county in the state), California has created a suite of "climate smart agriculture" programs. The first-of-their-kind programs, launched in 2014 and expanded in 2017, are <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25062020/california-farmers-coronavirus-emissions-climate-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">helping farms become more resilient </a>to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve land and protect ecosystems and communities. </p><p>The programs provide grant funds and technical assistance to farms in four key areas: conserving agricultural land against non-farm development; increasing on-farm water efficiency; improving soil health and managing manure to mitigate its climate impacts. The programs, popular with farmers, are receiving at least twice as many applications as there are grants.</p><p>They are also popular with nonprofit environmental and agricultural advocacy organizations. The California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN), evaluated the programs' climate benefits and found impressive results. To date, the programs collectively have funded more than 1,250 climate smart agriculture projects and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1.1 million metric tons of CO2 e (carbon dioxide equivalent) over the life of the projects, the equivalent of removing 67,000 passenger vehicles from the road for a year. The water efficiency programs have saved more than 110,000 acre feet of water (the equivalent of more than 50,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools).</p><p>They are also affordable, costing between $43 and $100 per metric ton of CO2 reductions. In a pre-pandemic California, one with a budget surplus and climate policy priorities, the programs would be expanding. Instead, climate smart agriculture funding is in jeopardy. The state, still partially wracked by the coronavirus, is in a worsening recession. Supporters of climate smart agriculture programs worry the state will spend its funding on other priorities.</p><p>This at a time when the coronavirus has exposed the need for greater investment in farm country, said Jeanne Merrill, CalCAN's policy director. "We're seeing the pandemic impacts on farmers is clearly a major disruption," she said, "and it's a disruption that can point to weaknesses in our current system. We're taking the lessons learned from the pandemic and applying that to how we can prepare for greater climate extremes. Investing in resilient farming is key."</p>Across Appalachia, a New Post-Coal Economy Beckons
<p>Coal mining jobs have been crashing for decades in eastern Kentucky, from roughly 30,000 in 1984 to about 3,000 now, undercutting what has long been among the most impoverished regions of the country.</p><p>For a long time, elected leaders <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24092019/mitch-mcconnell-coal-miners-pensions-fund-appalachia-senate-campaign" target="_blank">held</a> what turned out to be false hope that the coal industry would come back.</p><p>But a nonprofit based in Berea, Kentucky, the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, has been working toward a post-coal economy since 1976. </p><p>Among its programs: training entrepreneurs and providing low-interest loans to small businesses. In the past dozen years, MACED added energy efficiency and solar power to its mix of programs, saving clients money and cutting carbon emissions at the same time.</p><p>It's an ironic twist that rural Appalachian counties that helped power the nation with cheap—though dirty and climate warming—coal have seen residents' electricity bills <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14082018/coal-energy-prices-appalachia-mining-electric-bill-kentucky-economy-aep-rates" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">skyrocket</a> as coal has given way to cheaper natural gas and increasingly competitive wind and solar. Utility customers have been shouldering the costs of shuttering old coal-burning power plants and cleaning up the toxic messes they leave behind, while the power companies doubled down on more expensive coal.</p><p>Since May 2015, <a href="https://maced.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MACED</a> has helped with 30 solar installations, saving almost $400,000 in energy costs, said Ivy Brashear, MACED's Appalachian transition director. And since 2008, MACED has helped hundreds of homes and businesses reduce their energy bills by scrutinizing them for errors and helping to pay for energy efficiency retrofits, she said. She added that it included, for example, helping a grocery store stay in business to prevent a rural area from becoming a food desert.</p><p>"We listen and collaborate with people who are living and working in these communities, and help advance that new economy in ways that are really just and really equitable," Brashear said.</p><p>In solar work, MACED has focused on Letcher County, with a population of about 22,000, where businesses, faith communities and nonprofits are <a href="https://www.letcherculture.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tapping</a> their cultural strengths to create a new economy. </p><p>Whitesburg-based Appalshop, the 50-year-old arts and education nonprofit, for example, partnered with MACED to put solar panels on its new outdoor performance <a href="https://appalshop.org/solar" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pavilion</a>, which opened a year ago, to power its headquarters building and reduce electricity bills.</p><p>"In the last decade, our energy costs have gone up by 50 percent and were expected to keep rising," said Alexandra Werner-Winslow, Appalshop communications director. "That was not sustainable."</p><p>MACED, she said, "was tremendously helpful with our construction," and with the low-interest loan. At the same time, Appalshop sees solar development and energy efficiency as an important economic engine for eastern Kentucky.</p><p>MACED's funding includes grants from government and philanthropic foundations. With Congress weighing further ways to help the nation recover from an economic recession caused by the novel coronavirus, it could further a transition to cleaner energy and energy savings in rural areas through targeted investments and tax rebates, said Peter Hille, president of MACED.</p><p>"Anything that can (bring) down the front-end cost makes a big difference since that also reduces interest cost on financing over the life of the loan," he said.</p>Mountain Towns in the West Hope for a 'Green Pathway' Stimulus
<p>Jessie Burley is the sustainability director for the town of Breckenridge, Colorado, a posh, outdoorsy community in the Tenmile Range. Not only is Breckenridge a member of the statewide Colorado Communities for Climate Action but the town is also part of a national organization, Mountain Towns 2030, that's swapping ideas about how to meet a goal of net-zero carbon emissions within a decade, and one of many tourist towns focused on clean energy long before the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>And the resulting economic downturn hasn't changed the goal, said Burley. Sustainability-minded communities recognize that jobs and businesses ought to be a focus of the Covid-19 recovery, since the pandemic has revealed how exposed existing economic systems are, she said.</p><p>"Whether it's a virus or whether it's global warming or whether it's some other kind of disaster, we are more susceptible," she said. "We also can't lose sight of the fact that going back to business as usual is not going to be enough."</p><p>Members of a Mountain Towns 2030 task force on Covid-19 are pressing for any new stimulus package to include provisions supporting "green pathway" programs, such as green infrastructure, electric vehicle charging or renewable energy jobs. In that spirit, although Breckenridge has suffered steep, pandemic-related revenue losses, a community solar program is pressing forward this year, its grants scaled back from 25 to 20.</p><p>Similarly, in Montana, where revenue from natural resource industries makes up 12 percent of the state's general fund and paychecks for 1.2 percent of the workforce, a task force is finalizing a statewide climate change plan this month, said Mark Haggerty, an economist with Bozeman-based Headwaters Economics and a member of the governor's climate task force. Planning is still underway to decarbonize Montana's electricity sector by 2035 and to decarbonize Montana's economy by 2050, he said.</p><p>"A lot of this needs to be done in recognition of the fact that [the energy transition] is already happening," said Haggerty, noting that the task force is diverse, including everyone from conservationists to energy officials.</p><p>"It is a broad-based challenge, and everyone is affected regardless of where you live or what your political affiliation is," he said of the new climate goals in a world also dealing with Covid-19's economic fallout. "But, also, we need everyone to buy into and ultimately benefit from the changes that we can enact and that will benefit the entire state."</p>Virginia is the South's First State to Commit to Carbon-Free Energy
<p>In the wake of a political upheaval that put Democrats firmly in control of state government, Virginia in 2020 became the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/virginia-becomes-the-first-southern-state-with-a-goal-of-carbon-free-energy/2020/04/13/4ef22dd6-7db5-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html" target="_blank">first state in the South</a> to commit to 100 percent carbon-free energy and to join the northeast's <a href="https://www.rggi.org/sites/default/files/Uploads/Press-Releases/2020_07_08_VA_Announcement_Release.pdf" target="_blank">Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.</a></p><p>Most of the state's coal power would have to shut down by 2024 under the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which also lays the groundwork for a burst of new renewable energy construction. Lawmakers declared large amounts of solar and wind energy and energy storage to be "in the public interest," sweeping aside the regulatory barriers to new renewable energy projects.</p><p>This transition to renewable energy already has a footprint in the Hamptons Roads area, where the state plans to develop a wind industry hub to be overseen by a newly created state agency aimed at fostering offshore wind farms. The bill that created the agency stated Virginia's opposition to offshore drilling. </p><p>About 25 miles east, Virginia Beach is considering an array of plans to protect homes and businesses from increased climate-related flooding, storm surges and sea level rise, hoping for either state or federal funds to do everything from buying out flood prone homes to possibly building large floodgates to protect its shoreline. </p><p>In Norfolk, the state is supporting construction of new reefs using crushed concrete and granite that can serve as a habitat for the eastern oyster and also help shield the city against storm surges and erosion. The effort enabled state officials last year to declare the Lafayette River fully restored under the Chesapeake Bay Watershed agreement. </p><p>The Legislature, meanwhile, considered, but rejected, the idea of a Virginia "Green New Deal" public works-style program. Instead, lawmakers opted for a business-friendly approach that had the support of the state's big utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, by the time the legislation was<a href="https://www.governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/all-releases/2020/april/headline-856056-en.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> signed into law</a> by Gov. Ralph Northam on April 11. </p><p>The new Clean Economy Act makes it easier for rooftop solar to spread across Virginia, by expanding "net metering" for households—giving electricity customers credit for the excess solar energy they produce and sell back to the grid. It enables Virginians for the first time to save money on their monthly electric bills by going solar.</p><p>If utilities fall short on their obligations to cut carbon energy and expand renewables, they will be subject to penalties that will go into an account to fund job training, with priority given to historically disadvantaged communities, veterans and individuals in Virginia's coalfield regions. Some critics note that this set-up means there is no assured funding for worker transition programs, which could be provided by stimulus programs from the federal government.</p><p>Virginia already has more solar jobs (<a href="https://www.thesolarfoundation.org/solar-jobs-census/factsheet-2019-va/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">4,489</a>) than coal jobs (<a href="https://www.eia.gov/coal/annual/pdf/table18.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2,730)</a>, and the latter are concentrated in the rural southwestern part of the state, a Republican stronghold which has lost political power to the state's burgeoning northern suburbs. Diverse, highly educated and tech-heavy communities in the northern part of the state helped Democrats take full control of Virginia's Legislature in 2019, paving the way for passage of Northam's clean energy agenda. A chief challenge in implementing the law will be ensuring that the Republican-dominated, fossil fuel-dependent rural regions that have been resistant to change don't get left behind.</p>
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First-of-its-Kind Report Finds Climate Change Poses 'Major Risk' to U.S. Financial System
09 September
Politics
This is the first federal government report of its kind to focus on the effects of climate change on financial markets. Robertogfena / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 4.0
A massive, first-of-its-kind report, commissioned by Trump appointees and compiled by dozens of analysts from firms across the economy, says "climate change poses a major risk to the stability of the U.S. financial system and to its ability to sustain the American economy."
<p>The findings themselves are not entirely new, but the fact that they were published by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulatory body charged with overseeing the complex financial instruments that set the prices of commodities like corn, wheat, and oil, carries significant importance. </p><p>This is the first federal government report of its kind to focus on the effects of climate change on financial markets. </p>
<p>"It was shocking when they asked me to do this," Robert Litterman, the chairman of the panel that produced the report and a founding partner of Kepos Capital, told the New York Times. </p><p>"This is members of the entire community involved in financial markets saying with one voice, 'This is a serious problem, and it has to be addressed.'"</p>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/climate/climate-change-financial-markets.html?smid=em-share&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94874373&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_GWMht0msr3FV1Xf2nU0JyUKXAS4oLv4vz-Om82vxLSIJbO6g-Hoc4abyHF9XN68ZiNzPLz3GJs657bT7E3Dtk5St26yOIWAAzaMt1BKv9HGhaf5Q&utm_content=94874373&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">New York Times</a>, <a href="https://login.politicopro.com/?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fsubscriber.politicopro.com%2Farticle%2F2020%2F09%2Fcftc-report-climate-change-poses-serious-risk-to-financial-system-1990308%3Futm_campaign%3DHot%2520News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94874373&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--5bZHK86iwDFjQm-C_voC50lMzypE62jS7nTaMFKPrXvqcTy3T7DbCBTSEpjEv-PL2zJ0uGlwEc3tEsZh1nqtDdo8Bc0UgwJhcpAH9MjnF7lUwj_I&utm_content=94874373&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Politico Pro</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-market-risks/u-s-regulator-homes-in-on-climate-risks-to-u-s-markets-idUSKBN1YF2D5?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94874373&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--H0EH387MWUZNZ8k4V8X9XvPYIxdUCRvU_IKbt6eJ3maA7w4YflYSUN9IC-5pw7lXb7_M-EJDPnvgVCNa6xc5NDwAsVELfja-Q-JOP9kjcqYNMyxE&utm_content=94874373&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Reuters</a>, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/federal-doc-warns-of-financial-disaster-of-climate-change.html?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94874373&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8OrmxZVuEqVClJXfDHCIqGPv4HR3Z7xfE55UbC8Q6E0hbOlfbSe3kmjcAfOnoG3UBgA7DkdJkgbqdP41PMUH2oQzCiFwutTj-ZhcvzYaNzlHbUnJQ&utm_content=94874373&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New York Magazine</a><br/></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, and sign up for daily </em><a href="http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>. </em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
By Julia Mahncke
U.S. President Donald Trump has undone many major pieces of climate policy during his term, walking out on the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming and eliminating numerous Obama-era environmental regulations.
<p>Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, has promised as part of his presidential campaign to invest $1.7 trillion in a "clean energy revolution and environmental justice" over the next decade. It falls some $14 trillion short of what the progressive U.S. senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, pledged on climate action during the Democratic primaries. </p><p>However, climate change doesn't even make the top 10 concerns among registered voters, even as the U.S. faces extreme weather from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/californian-wildfires-blaze-as-lightning-strikes-more-than-11000-times/a-54628620" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires</a> to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/hurricane-laura-leaves-over-a-dozen-dead-in-southern-us/a-54750273" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">storms</a>, which scientists say are becoming more prevalent thanks to global warming. The issue ranks 11th behind the economy, health care, Supreme Court appointments and the pandemic, according to a survey conducted by the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/08/13/important-issues-in-the-2020-election/pp_2020-08-13_voter-attitudes_4-01/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pew Research Center</a> published in August. </p><p>While climate change doesn't top the voters' agenda, it's still one of the most divisive issues among Trump and Biden supporters. Some 68% of Democratic voters see climate change as high priority compared to 11% of Republicans, found the Pew survey.</p><p>But what are the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/joe-biden-vows-to-end-this-season-of-darkness-for-america/a-54643451" target="_blank">Biden</a> and Trump campaigns promising to do on climate change and the environment — and how does it tally with what voters want?</p>
Biden a Climate Disappointment?
<p>Biden, Barack Obama's former vice president, plans to recommit to the Paris Accord and ensure that the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions by 2050. Biden has also promised a halt to fossil fuel subsidies, going further than the Democratic National Committee, the governing body of the Democrats, which dropped that demand from its platform earlier this month.</p><p>Prior to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/kamala-harris-formally-accepts-us-vice-president-nomination/a-54629507" target="_blank">Kamala Harris' announcement as Biden's running mate</a>, the California senator had been vocal in her support for bold climate action. Harris co-sponsored the New Green Deal, calling on Congress to implement a 10-year government-driven mobilization to decarbonize the economy, while also backing job retraining and social and environmental justice. </p><p>But some Democratic voters are disappointed with the Biden/Harris ticket, believing <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/us-bernie-sanders-halts-bid-for-democratic-presidential-nomination/a-53065293" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sanders, who dropped out of the Democratic race for president in April</a>, would have been the better candidate. </p><p>"I have two kids, so I have to be mindful and hopeful, but I lost a lot of hope since Bernie Sanders didn't get the bid," said Karen Antunes, as she wrapped up a picnic with her kids and little dog in Peninsula Park in Portland Oregon. </p><p>That won't stop her voting Democrat though.</p><p>"We have to. The Trump thing has got to end," added Antunes. "But I'm not excited."</p><p>Most progressive voters like Antunes might prefer to unite behind <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-biden-isnt-trump-but-thats-not-enough/a-54644348" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden against Trump's reelection</a> even if they don't feel his commitment to climate change action goes far enough.</p><p>"I don't think the differences between Biden and Sanders on the environment — or any other issues — will matter much to Democratic voters compared to the difference between Biden and Trump," said Stephen Ansolabehere, director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University. </p>Republicans: Economy Trumps Climate Change
<p>Over the last few years, Trump has <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/trump-climate-change-denial-emissions-environment-germany-fake-heartland-seibt/a-52688933" target="_blank">dismissed climate change as a "hoax,"</a> not human-caused, and called environmental activists "perennial prophets of doom."</p><p>The U.S. president's 63 bullet-point election agenda, which is divided into categories like "Jobs," "Eradicate COVID-19" and "End our reliance on China," makes no direct mention of climate change or the environment. </p><p>Instead, tucked away under the heading "Innovate for the future" toward the bottom of the list, there are two promises: "Continue to Lead the World in Access to the Cleanest Drinking Water and Cleanest Air" and "Partner with Other Nations to Clean Up our Planet's Oceans." </p><p>The plan outlines no path to clean water or air.</p><p>The lack of climate change mentions in Trump's agenda might please many Republican voters since they are "obviously less supportive of regulations," said Daron Shaw, a professor specializing in voting behavior at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the Fox News Poll.</p><p>"Democrats are much more willing to take stronger measures," said Shaw, adding that few Republicans support policies such as a significant carbon or fossil fuel tax. "But if you ask Republicans about recycling, if you ask about fuel efficiency standards, they're very supportive of those sorts of smallish behaviors."</p>Growing Impatience Among Young Republicans
<p>Some younger Republicans are starting to become critical of their party's inattention to climate change. During the recent Republican National Convention, a small group turned to Twitter during the online event, to ask "#WhatAboutClimate"?</p><p>Another Pew study from June 2020 found that millennial and Gen Z Republicans, currently aged 18 to 39, are more likely than older GOP voters to think humans have a significant impact on the climate and that the federal government is doing too little to tackle the problem.</p><p>That doesn't mean they're ready to switch allegiance to the Democrats, though. </p><p>"Being a Republican is very much rooted in my upbringing," said Kiera O'Brien, who founded the group Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends (YCCD). "Conservatism at home in Ketchikan, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/alaska-climate-change-threatens-indigenous-traditions/a-50722471" target="_blank">Alaska</a>, has a focus on community and nature." </p><p>O'Brien dislikes the Democrat's "regulatory approach to climate" and is instead lobbying for free market solutions to climate change through YCCD.</p>Reframing Climate Action
<p>Environmental policies can be a complicated issue when it comes to federal elections and hard to address for presidential candidates. Many regions in the U.S. have unique challenges: from wildfires in California and storms wiping out harvests in Iowa to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/speaking-truth-to-power-female-activists-dominate-top-environmental-prize/a-43499770" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">water pollution in Flint, Michigan</a>.</p><p>Harvard's Ansolabehere also pointed out that opposition to climate policies in the past were typically connected to the fear of losing jobs and that prohibiting coal or retooling the auto industry will "adversely affect employment" in places like Kentucky and Michigan.</p><p>Daron Shaw added that Republicans typically "try to frame environmental issues as a matter of high taxation and job killing proposals with the hope that they can peel off Democrats."</p><p>Biden might be trying to assuage fears that tackling climate change means job losses by framing his plan as an opportunity for employment in new industries and a reinvigorated green manufacturing sector.</p><p>But when it comes to the swing states of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, Trump's climate record and support for jobs in the fossil fuel sector might give him the upper hand. His backing for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/we-need-to-talk-about-virgin-plastics/a-48458223" target="_blank">ethane cracker plants, which take natural gas</a> and converts it into the basis for making plastics, has received a lot of support, said Ansolabehere, especially from local unions. </p>From Your Site Articles
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EPA Chief Previews a Second Trump Term: More Deregulation, Fewer Environmental Protections
04 September
Politics
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at the Nixon Library on Sept. 3, 2020. Richard Nixon Foundation / YouTube
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Andrew Wheeler gave a speech Thursday where he accused Democratic efforts to stop the climate crisis as actions that have hurt poor and vulnerable communities. He also laid out a vision for a second Trump term, saying it would bring a new wave of deregulation and support for economic development, according to Reuters.
<p>The speech was given to celebrate the agency's 50th anniversary and was streamed live on YouTube. Wheeler took the opportunity to celebrate the Trump administration's rollbacks of environmental protections and promised more to come. He also used his platform to say the agency would focus less on preventive measures that stop pollution, but concentrate on the cleanup of toxic areas, according to <a href="https://apnews.com/fb0ad1ef15443dfdddec52f5081eb094" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Associated Press</a> (AP).</p><p>"We need to make sure we are speaking to people where they live and we're addressing the problems they see on a daily basis," Wheeler told the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-will-roll-back-more-regulations-if-re-elected-epa-chief-says-11599130805" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a> Thursday.</p><p>Wheeler said that a second Trump term would mean the EPA would turn its attention to community revitalization, water quality, permitting reform, Superfund cleanups and pesticide administration, according to Reuters.</p>
<p>"I believe that by focusing EPA toward communities in the coming years, our agency can change the future for people living in this country who have been left behind simply for living in polluted places," he said, as <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/515055-epa-chief-pushing-for-second-trump-term-outlines-vision-for-agency" target="_blank">The Hill</a> reported.</p><p>He argued that the actions that supported development and cleanup were actually designed to help poor communities.</p><p>"This will do more for environmental justice than all the rhetoric in political campaigns," Wheeler claimed, as Reuters reported.</p><p>He also added that in a second term, he would continue rules he implemented that limit what scientific research could be considered in decision-making and another that reevaluates how the agency predicts climate risk, according to The Hill. Both of those rules have been criticized by experts for eschewing <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/">science</a> and for fuzzy math.</p>
<p>While Wheeler argued that policies meant to mitigate pollution are hurting poor communities, many experts see it differently. They argue that the more than 100 environmental rollbacks that have happened under the Trump administration will increase air and water pollution around the nation's most vulnerable communities, leading to more illness and premature deaths, according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/03/epa-chief-trump-will-roll-back-more-environmental-rules-if-re-elected.html" target="_blank">CNBC</a>.</p><p>"EPA was founded to protect people — you, me and our families — but the Trump administration has turned it into an agency to protect polluters," said Gina McCarthy, who led the agency during the Obama administration and now is president of the NRDC Action Fund, the political arm of the Natural Resources Defense Council, as the AP reported</p><p>In an attempt at revisionism, Wheeler said it was the Obama administration that hurt poor communities by regulating industry.</p><p>"The Obama-Biden administration only focused on climate change at the expense of the communities here in the United States and the expense of reducing pollution where people live," Wheeler told the Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>Former EPA officials like McCarthy, both from Republican and Democratic administrations, have banded together to denounce the policies put forth by Trump and Wheeler. Five former EPA administrators issued a joint statement that said, "Actions during the Trump administration have further decreased public confidence in the agency's credibility, undercut its historic dedication to high ethical standards, and affected employee morale," according to the AP.</p><p>"Every one of the actions they have taken, either by weakening or rolling back basic protections, has put environmental justice communities — front-line communities — in greater harm," Mustafa Santiago Ali, a longtime EPA official who now works on environmental justice and climate issues for the National Wildlife Federation, said in an interview, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/03/wheeler-epa-trump-climate/?hpid=hp_national1-8-12_epa-540p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported. "I have seen no actions that lead me to believe they have any interest in protecting those lives."</p><p>Mike Flynn, who worked at the EPA for nearly four decades before retiring in 2018, told The Washington Post: "The Trump administration has transformed EPA into an agency that's failing to meet the fundamental mission of the agency, protecting public health and environment."</p><p>He added that the staff there "is really demoralized."</p>
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President Donald Trump’s Climate Change Record Has Been a Boon for Oil Companies, and a Threat to the Planet
02 September
Climate
Two weeks before the start of the Republican convention in late August, President Trump rolled back Barack Obama's last major environmental regulation, restricting methane leaks. Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 2.0
By Vernon Loeb, Marianne Lavelle and Stacy Feldman
In the middle of his 44th month in office, two weeks before the start of the Republican convention in late August, President Trump rolled back Barack Obama's last major environmental regulation, restricting methane leaks.
<p>The move represented an environmental trifecta of sorts for the president, who had handed the oil and gas industry another gift in his quest for "American energy dominance," thumbed his nose yet again at climate change and came close to fully dismantling his predecessor's environment and climate legacy.</p><p>It had been a busy four years, and a breakneck 2020, as Trump and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/14/climate/fossil-fuel-industry-environmental-policy.html" target="_blank">the former industry executives and lobbyists</a> he'd placed in control of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior raced to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31032020/fuel-efficiency-rollback-trump-administration-california-cafe-climate-change-tailpipe-emissions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rollback auto emissions standards</a>, weaken the nation's <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09012020/trump-nepa-environmental-review-changes-climate-change-infrastructure-pipelines" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">most important environmental law</a>, open the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26082020/trump-administration-alaska-oil-drilling-mining-projects" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling</a> and <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14042020/air-pollution-epa-covid-pm2.5-secret-science-rule-health-fuel-standard-climate-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reject stronger air pollution</a> standards, even as <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24072020/how-harvard-covid-19-study-became-center-partisan-uproar" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">research showed a link</a> between those pollutants and an increased risk of death from Covid-19.</p><p>"I applaud and strongly support President Trump's continued support for the oil and gas industry," Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said after the administration proposed its rollback of the Obama methane rules. "During these uncertain times, it makes no sense that we would be placing additional regulatory burdens on our vital industries which are not supported by sound science and do not consider economic impact." </p>
<p>Environmental lawyers and climate activists who've been battling Trump since day one are in agreement that Trump, beginning with his decision to lead the nation out of the Paris climate accord, has done more to roll back and weaken environmental laws and regulations than any president in history.</p><p>Trump extolled the accomplishment and put a different spin on the superlative during a White House speech in July, saying, "We have removed nearly <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-rolling-back-regulations-help-americans/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">25,000 pages of job destroying regulations</a>, more than any other president by far in the history of our country." </p><p>A few days earlier, as his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14072020/joe-biden-climate-plan-coronavirus-build-back-better" target="_blank">unveiled a $2 trillion plan</a> to combat climate change, Trump promoted what he called a "very dramatic" series of revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act, the foundation of environmental protection in the United States that had been signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon 50 years ago.</p><p><span></span>Environmentalists have used the law to block everything from pipelines to the destruction of natural habitats. Trump has now limited environmental reviews under the act to between one and two years and relieved federal agencies from having to consider a project's impact on climate change during the review and permitting process.</p><p>"While our world is burning, President Trump is adding fuel to the fire by taking away our right to be informed and to protect ourselves from irreparable harm," Gina McCarthy, Obama's EPA administrator who now serves as president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of weakening the act.</p><p>By late summer, Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law had counted 159 actions since Trump took office "to scale back or wholly eliminate climate mitigation and adaptation measures." Many have been slowed or blocked by the courts. </p>
Trump's Long Focus on 'American Energy Dominance'
<p>When Trump delivered his <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27052016/donald-trump-republican-party-election-fossil-fuels-coal-oil-gas-fracking-climate-change-paris" target="_blank">first major energy speech in the fracking fields of North Dakota</a> as a candidate in May 2016, he called for American domination of global energy supplies.</p><p>"We are going to turn everything around," Trump declared. "And quickly, very quickly."</p><p>Once in office, Trump pursued a policy of unfettered support for fossil fuel development. He immediately signed memorandums to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24012017/keystone-xl-dakota-pipeline-donald-trump-executive-order" target="_blank">revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines</a>, projects blocked by Obama. </p><p>In early March 2017, his administration ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-methane-greenhouse-gas-climate-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stop gathering data from oil and gas companies</a> needed to rein in leaks of methane, a potent short-lived climate pollutant. Fossil fuel infrastructure adds to greenhouse gas emissions, in part by leaking methane into the atmosphere. </p><p>He followed up, at the end of March, by issuing <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28032017/trump-executive-order-climate-change-paris-climate-agreement-clean-power-plan-pruitt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a sweeping executive order</a> directing all federal agencies to target for elimination any rules that restrict U.S. production of energy. He set guidance to make it more difficult to put future regulations on fossil fuel industries and he moved to discard the use of a rigorous "social cost of carbon," a regulatory measurement that puts a price on the future damage society will pay for every ton of carbon dioxide emitted. </p><p>As his first year in office came to a close, Trump and Alaska's Republican senators inserted a provision into his signature tax cut legislation that called for opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.</p><p>In 2018, domestic oil production hit a record high. The result of this, among other things, was the <a href="https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-estimates-for-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reversal of three consecutive years of declining U.S. carbon emissions</a>.</p><p>Many of Trump's regulations have also been tailored to favor the coal industry, often at the expense of cheaper, cleaner energy. <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11102017/climate-denial-coal-industry-global-warming-robert-murray-energy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Robert Murray</a>, founder of the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29102019/coal-bankruptcy-bob-murray-energy-chapter-11-trump-regulations-rollback" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">now-bankrupt coal company Murray Energy</a> and one of Trump's closest industry allies, gave the president a "wish list" early on that became a virtual template for the administration's rollback of regulations. </p><p>The administration swiftly lifted an Obama moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands, to no real benefit. The decline of coal continued unabated, but Trump remained an unapologetic champion of the dirtiest fossil fuel. </p>Trump's War on Science
<p>When U.S. government scientists released their latest volume of the <a href="https://science2017.globalchange.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Climate Assessment in November 2018, </a>it revealed much about the robust, sobering scientific consensus on climate change.</p><p>It also revealed the striking disconnect between Trump and essentially every authoritative institution on the threat of global warming.</p><p>The president rejected the assessment's central findings—based on thousands of climate studies and involving 13 federal agencies—that emissions of carbon dioxide are caused by human activities, are already causing lasting economic damage and have to be brought rapidly to zero.</p><p>"I don't believe it. No, no, I don't believe it," Trump told a reporter after the assessment's release. </p><p>In almost every agency overseeing energy, the environment and health, people with little scientific background, or strong ties to industries they would be regulating, were appointed to scientific leadership positions. </p><p>One of the administration's first actions was to order scientists and other employees at EPA and other agencies to halt public communications. Several federal scientists working on climate change have said they were silenced, sidelined or demoted. The words "climate change" have been purged from government reports and other reports have been buried. </p><p>The administration's mistrust of scientists and its tendency toward science denialism would also become a prominent feature of its response to the coronavirus pandemic, when the president <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/coronavirus-travel-alert-cdc-white-house-tensions-invs/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">muzzled scientists at the Centers for Disease Control </a>and chafed at the dire predictions of many epidemiological models for Covid-19 deaths. </p><p>With the nation in a state of emergency over the pandemic, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist who serves as Trump's administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23032020/trump-epa-health-secret-science-coronavirus" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">moved in late March</a> to fast-track the "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science" rule. Wheeler replaced Scott Pruitt, an Oklahoma Republican who served as Trump's first EPA administrator before resigning in 2018 amid an ethics scandal. </p><p>Critics call Wheeler's transparency proposal Orwellian and say it would actually <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042020/epa-secret-science-coronavirus-covid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">limit the use of human health science</a> in environmental decision-making, by eliminating studies that rely on patients' anonymous medical data.</p><p>While Trump and his conservative allies contend that the reliance on such studies amounts to "secret science," scientists and leading medical authorities respond that it is standard practice to honor patient confidentiality in peer-reviewed studies. </p><p>Numerous studies, including one based on health data from 60 million Medicare recipients, have shown that one of the signature pollutants from the burning of fossil fuels, microscopic particles less than 2.5 microns in width—known as PM 2.5—kill as many as 52,100 Americans prematurely each year.</p><p>Less than a month later, as much of the nation remained locked down to halt the spread of Covid-19, a respiratory disease, the Trump administration rejected a recommendation from government scientists to strengthen the national air quality standard for particulate matter. Trump chose instead to maintain the current PM 2.5 standard, handing the fossil fuel industry a major victory.</p>A 'Concerted Attack' on Alaska, Public Lands
<p>The Trump administration knew no bounds for its fossil fuel agenda, pursuing drilling from the outset on pristine public lands in Alaska and the lower 48 states, where oil companies have long sought access. </p><p>Less than four months after taking office, Trump moved <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28042017/doanld-trump-arctic-offshore-drilling-ban-obama-executive-order" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">to lift Obama's offshore Arctic drilling ban</a> and, then, in July 2017, gave Italian oil company Eni a quick green light to drill exploratory wells. </p><p>In March 2018, the Trump administration proposed a resumption of leasing in Alaska's Beaufort Sea. President Obama, shortly before leaving office, had "permanently" withdrawn from drilling there. </p><p>By then, Trump had also carved 2 million acres of land from the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments in southern Utah in what amounted to the most sweeping reductions in protections for public land in U.S. history. </p><p>In September 2018, the Interior Department finalized a <a href="https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/Final%20Rule%20-1004-AE53%20-%20%20Ready%20for%20OFR%209.18.18_508%20%281%29.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rule</a> that loosens methane requirements for oil and gas operations on federal lands. A month later, the administration proposed a regulation to streamline and expedite oil and gas permits on national forest lands. </p><p>The following summer, the administration proposed weakening protections under the Endangered Species Act for threatened species and critical habitat. Shortly thereafter, the Interior Department commenced the public comment period on its plan for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that had been included in the 2017 tax bill. </p><p>In early August 2020, the president signed the Great American Outdoors Act appropriating $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and $9.5 billion over five years to reduce maintenance backlogs in the national parks. </p><p>The bipartisan legislation was sponsored by a House Democrat, but Trump extolled its passage as the most significant act in support of parklands since Teddy Roosevelt.</p><p>Still, the administration was preparing, on the eve of the Republican convention, to start selling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The sale was <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26082020/trump-administration-alaska-oil-drilling-mining-projects" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one of six pending projects</a> in which Trump was pursuing more drilling, logging and mining in Alaska.</p><p>One environmentalist called it the most "concerted attack" in 30 years on Alaska's natural resources. </p><p>All six of the Trump initiatives could still be blocked or rolled back in the courts, or undone by a new Biden administration working with a Democratic Congress. But for now, they are proceeding, with enormous consequences for Alaska's environment, and global climate change.</p>One by One, Obama's Main Climate Accomplishments Fell
<p>The same could be said for President Obama's environment and climate legacy: Trump's relentless attacks could be wholly or partially undone by a new administration and Congress. But for now, Trump has accomplished his mission: a near total elimination of his predecessor's most significant measures.</p><p>After countless piecemeal rollbacks during Trump's first two and a half years in office, the administration in June 2019 launched its long-awaited attack on Obama's signature plan to tackle climate change. Designed to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants, Obama called it the Clean Power Plan.</p><p>While the plan was challenged by industry and 27 states and blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court before Obama even left office, it encouraged many states to begin a process of planning for a transition away from coal-fired electricity at a time when cheaper natural gas and renewable energy already were forcing coal plants to shut down. </p><p>Next came Trump's rollback of Obama's 2012 automobile fuel efficiency standards, the single largest step any nation had taken to address global warming by cutting carbon emissions from cars and trucks. The weakened Trump plan will allow automakers to deploy fleets that average just 40 miles per gallon by 2025, instead of 54 mpg.</p><p>If Trump's standard ultimately survives legal challenges, cars and trucks in the United States would emit nearly a billion tons more carbon dioxide during their lifetimes than they would have under the Obama standards. </p><p>Finally, in mid-August, Trump <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13082020/trump-epa-methane-emission-rollbacks" target="_blank">proposed the rollback</a> of the methane rules, the last major Obama environmental regulation still standing. Methane, a super-pollutant, is 86 times more potent in warming the planet than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.</p><p>The Obama rule required oil and gas companies to monitor methane leaks and fix them. The Trump replacement weakens those requirements, allowing companies<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13082020/trump-epa-methane-emission-rollbacks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> to release 4.5 million metric tons more pollution each year. </a></p><p>In the climate realm, Obama is best known, of course, as the driving force behind the 2015 Paris climate accord. </p><p>Trump first announced in a Rose Garden speech in June 2017 that the U.S. would withdraw from the accord in three years, as soon as the treaty allowed. </p><p>So, right on cue, two years later, on Nov. 4, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified the United Nations of the formal exit of the United States, activating the final one-year waiting period. </p><p>The actual U.S. withdrawal is set for Nov. 4, 2020, one day after the presidential election.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Trump speaks during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Aug. 4, 2020 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer / Getty Images
The U.S. has decided to stick to its isolationist strategy for developing, producing and distributing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that it will not take part in the international efforts led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to distribute a vaccine equally around the world, according to The Washington Post.
<p>That means that if a vaccine is first developed in the U.S., it will stay here and likely go to the highest bidders rather than the corners of the world that most need it, but are unable to pay for it.</p><p>Last month, the WHO <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/24-08-2020-172-countries-and-multiple-candidate-vaccines-engaged-in-covid-19-vaccine-global-access-facility" target="_blank">announced</a> that 172 countries around the world were joining together to form the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, which will work to develop, test and distribute the vaccine equally, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/us-covid-19-vaccine-refuses-international-effort-coronavirus" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. COVAX is a joint effort put together by the WHO, along with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.</p>
<p>Asked on Monday if the U.S. would join COVAX, White House spokesperson Judd Deere issued a statement that read: "The United States will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus, but we will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China."</p><p>COVAX plans to purchase and distribute roughly 2 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2021. On Tuesday, the European Commission announced that it will contribute $478 million to the effort, which includes many U.S. trading partners and allies, like Germany and Japan.</p>
<p>The refusal by the U.S. to participate in a global effort to fight the coronavirus is worrying to public health officials and to academics who see international cooperation as a necessity to stopping the virus in an interconnected world. It also is an ominous harbinger when facing other international threats, such as the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>Kendall Hoyt, an assistant professor at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, told The Washington Post that the move was akin to opting out of an insurance policy.</p><p>Experts say that the idea beyond COVAX is to discourage hoarding of the vaccine and to focus first on high-risk populations around the world, which, in the long run, will benefit the global community, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/coronavirus-vaccine-trump/2020/09/01/b44b42be-e965-11ea-bf44-0d31c85838a5_story.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>.</p><p>"No one is safe until everyone is safe. No one country has access to research and development, manufacturing and all the supply chain for all essential medicines and materials," said WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in August, as The Guardian reported. "We need to prevent vaccine nationalism."</p>
<p>Some in the Trump administration see the benefit in international cooperation. According to The Washington Post, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun both wanted to explore a role for the U.S. in COVAX, but were shut down by administration officials who believe the U.S. has enough vaccine candidates that it can take a nationalist strategy.</p><p>However, that's a bet that can have dire consequences for the U.S. either way. If a U.S. vaccine candidate does not work, the country will have no vaccine while the rest of the world does. Alternatively, if a U.S. vaccine does work, then the country will have a vaccine and distribute it to low-risk people, leaving its trading partners and potential tourists in the lurch.</p><p>"The behavior of countries when it comes to vaccines in this pandemic will have political repercussions beyond public health," said Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, to The Washington Post. "It's about, are you a reliable partner or, at the end of the day, are you going to keep all your toys for yourself?"</p>
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San Juan National Forest in Colorado is an example of the national forests that will be vulnerable to oil and gas drilling. Paxson Woelber / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 4.0
The Trump Administration released a proposed rule allowing oil and gas drilling on millions of acres of protected national forests, The Houston Chronicle reported.
<p>The new rule would allow drilling without public review or environmental reviews that would analyze the impact of industrial actions, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/01/trump-administration-rule-drilling-national-forests" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>"By undermining the public participation and environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act, this proposed rule puts the interests of the fossil fuel industry ahead of the public interest," Will Fadely, a senior government relations representative for The Wilderness Society, said in a <a href="https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/new-rule-aims-escalate-oil-and-gas-drilling-our-national-forests" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p><p>So far, the U.S. Forest Service allows drilling and exploration in roughly one-third of its protected forests, or about three percent of its lands. Now, a new analysis from <a href="https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/new-rule-aims-escalate-oil-and-gas-drilling-our-national-forests" target="_blank">The Wilderness Society</a> finds that the proposed rule will transfer control of the lands from the Forest Service to the Bureau of Land Management, which will then open up drilling on millions of acres in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>The Forest Service would experience a drastically reduced role, with its duties limited to protecting specifically named natural resources.</p><p>Although the rule mostly targets forests in the West, the proposed rule could also affect national forests on the East Coast, according to The Guardian. This means more forests could share the fate of Allegheny National Forest, now home to thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells, which taxpayers must pay to clean up, <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/josh-axelrod/trump-administration-eyes-forests-oil-and-gas-drilling" target="_blank">The National Resources Defense Council</a> (NRDC) reported.</p><p>As <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/administration-relaxes-rules-oil-and-gas-drilling-national-forests" target="_blank">the National Audubon Society</a> pointed out, national forests play an important role in storing carbon dioxide and combatting the climate crisis. By eliminating the necessary environmental review, the new leases will have free reign to cleave habitats with roads and pollute pristine lands.</p>
<p>"The administration really outdid itself with a proposal that has the Forest Service walking away from its responsibilities for managing our national forests and grassland while closing the door on public oversight," Nada Culver, vice president of public lands and senior counsel for the National Audubon Society, said in a <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/administration-relaxes-rules-oil-and-gas-drilling-national-forests" target="_blank">statement</a>. "This is not just a conservation issue, it's putting our communities at risk. Replacing forested areas and grasslands with drill pads and access roads not only means fewer birds like Mallards and Prairie Warblers, but also degrades our lands and natural spaces, and threatens water supplies for millions of people."</p><p>The NRDC took exception to how the proposed rule will allow drilling near the lands of Indigenous people. The NRDC noted that despite industrialization and relocation policies, Indigenous people have been stewards of the land and a model of the economic and emotional benefits that healthy forests provide.</p><p>"Tens of millions of Americans hike, camp, fish, hunt, bike and run in our national forests each year," Sharon Buccino, senior director of lands for the Nature Program at NRDC, said in a statement. "This rule would sideline their voices in favor of the fossil fuel industry. We won't allow the Trump administration to shut down public review of drilling in our national forests that the American people don't want and that the climate can't afford."</p>
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