Environmental Policy under the trump Administration

Election day. The potential for change in presidential (and congressional) leadership prompted a look into what might be the most damaging outcome from the last four years. Environmental policy under the trump administration has aggressively prioritized deregulation of fossil fuel industries, opening public lands to energy exploration, reducing protections for threatened/endangered species, weakening industrial/automobile emission standards and abandoning international commitments to address climate change.

Regulatory agency leadership recruited directly from industry

Despite pledging to “drain the swamp” during the 2016 presidential campaign, the trump administration has installed former fossil fuel executives and lobbyists in senior regulatory leadership positions. This includes Andrew Wheeler, EPA administrator and David Bernhardt, Secretary – Department of Interior, who both lobbied on behalf of the oil and gas industry. Nearly 50% of total political appointees to the EPA and Interior have close ties to the industry. Advisory committees, which are responsible for informing policy development and under prior administrations were staffed with scientists and academics, have been filled with industry representatives that have not been vetted through the federal ethics review process.

Public lands opened for economic activity

The administration has overseen the largest reduction of protected lands in U.S. history. This includes a 51% reduction to Grand Staircase-Escalante and 85% reduction to Bears Ears National Monuments in Utah. Additionally, the Department of Agriculture recommended a significant portion of the 9.37 million acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska be opened for logging operations. If not permanently blocked through legal action or reversed by a new administration, these actions would endanger plant/animal species and increase vulnerability to climate change as forests prevent a significant amount of greenhouse gas gases from entering the atmosphere.

Removing protections for threatened and endangered species

Another strategy designed to ease fossil fuel development is weakening protections for threatened and endangered species. The Department of Interior has proposed broad revisions to the Endangered Species Act that reduces protections for species classified as ‘threatened’ and allows for consideration of economic factors in determining if a species is listed as ‘endangered.’ This could result in species left without critical protections at a time when a U.N. report has warned as many as 1 million plant and animal species are in danger of extinction worldwide.

A retreat from climate action

The United States accounts for the second most annual carbon dioxide emissions in the world. Carbon dioxide is the primary driver of human caused climate change that disproportionately impacts low-emitting countries in the developing world. Recognition of the need for global action to address climate change prompted 195 countries, including the United States (under the Obama Administration) to adopt the Paris Climate Accord in 2016. This agreement established targets of 20% reduction of carbon dioxide, 20% increase of renewable energy market share and 20% increase in energy efficiency for member countries and $100 billion in annual contributions from industrialized countries, to support mitigation and adaptation strategies in developing nations.

Despite mounting evidence of climate change impacts such as record-breaking heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, the trump Administration announced the U.S. would become the first (and still only) country to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord in 2017. This dramatic signal of climate change apathy has been followed by a dismantling of Obama-era regulations designed to reduce carbon emissions. This includes removing greenhouse gas emissions targets from the Clean Power Plan for industrial polluters and reducing automobile fuel efficiency standard increases from 5% to 1.5% per year. These changes are projected to result in over 1 billion additional metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually in the United States.