Tag: Trump EPA

Here’s What Trump’s Environmental Agencies Were Doing During The Pandemic This Week

They approved pipelines and gold mines while attacking science as the death toll rises from the novel coronavirus and mass layoffs begin.

The novel coronavirus pandemic tanked the stock market and sent jobless claims soaring to unprecedented levels this week, but did little to slow the White House’s efforts to boost fossil fuel production and roll back environmental safeguards.

On Wednesday, as the U.S. death toll surpassed 100 and the virus spread to all 50 states, the Trump administration widened what critics call one of its most aggressive assaults on science, auctioned drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico and greenlit the expansion of a mine.

It started when the Environmental Protection Agency formalized its plans to expand on a controversial proposal to restrict the scientific research used to make regulations, broadening the scope to include non-regulatory divisions of the agency as well. Continue reading.

The EPA is about to change a rule cutting mercury pollution. The industry doesn’t want it.

Washington Post logoFor more than three years, the Trump administration has prided itself on working with industry to unshackle companies from burdensome environmental regulations. But as the Environmental Protection Agency prepares to finalize the latest in a long line of rollbacks, the nation’s power sector has sent a different message:

Thanks, but no thanks.

Exelon, one of the nation’s largest utilities, told the EPA that its effort to change a rule that has cut emissions of mercury and other toxins is “an action that is entirely unnecessary, unreasonable, and universally opposed by the power generation sector.” Continue reading.

Trump’s EPA Prepares Another Gift For The Coal Industry

Trump’s EPA administrator wants to redraw our nation’s mercury standard to benefit coal-fired power plants that belch out nearly half the nation’s mercury emissions. But the agency’s Science Advisory Board is balking.

The board, headed by Trump administration appointee Michael Honeycutt who previously opposed tougher mercury standards, told the EPA it needed to look again at how much mercury people get from fish and the harm from mercury.

“EPA should instigate a new risk assessment,” the board wrote. Continue reading.

Climate change claims made by the head of the EPA can’t be backed up, new report says

At this point, most people don’t expect the Trump administration to listen to research on climate change. That doesn’t make it any less shocking when officials invent facts for themselves. Recently, the EPA failed to provide scientific evidence to back up claims that climate change damage was decades away. To environmental advocates, it’s proof that the Trump administration is playing the same old climate-denying games.

Last March, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, was interviewed by CBS News’s Major Garrett. There, Wheeler told Garrett that he believed drinking water is the “biggest environmental threat” because “most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out.”

Wheeler’s remarks quickly drew attention from climate change activists. In response, the environmental organization Sierra Club filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demanding that the EPA produce records to support Wheeler’s assertion. That simple request turned into a lawsuit in October after the EPA refused to turn over documents. Continue reading.

Trump Removes Pollution Controls on Streams and Wetlands

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday finalized a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands and groundwater, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens.

From Day 1 of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s “Waters of the United States” regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in about 60 days, is the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling and endangered species protections.

Although Mr. Trump frequently speaks of his desire for the United States to have “crystal-clean water,” he has called his predecessor’s signature clean-water regulation “horrible,” “destructive” and “one of the worst examples of federal” overreach. Continue reading.

Critics warn Trump’s latest environmental rollback could hit minorities, poor hardest

The Hill logoPresident Trump‘s proposed overhaul of a bedrock environmental law aims to streamline project reviews, but those changes are likely to hit minority communities and those with high poverty rates the hardest, experts warn.

The White House on Thursday detailed a sweeping proposal to revamp the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which requires environmental reviews for big proposed projects like highways or pipelines, as well as when polluting industries plan to discharge into the air or water.

The changes eyed by the Trump administration would limit the scope of the environmental analysis required for such projects, including allowing greater industry involvement in environmental reviews and diminishing the role climate change plays in those assessments. Continue reading.

EPA Will Ease Rules On Storage Of Deadly Coal Ash

Utilities soon could get federal approval for the riskiest way to get rid of coal ash.

The latest Trump EPA proposal to prop up the financially struggling coal industry would make water supplies more vulnerable to the ash, the toxic remnants of burning coal.

A report from the Environmental Integrity Project warns that the enduring legacy of coal ash will be groundwater pollution such as that in Memphis where city water is threatened. Continue reading.

White House aims to roll back bedrock environmental law to speed development

The Hill logoThe White House on Thursday issued sweeping changes to one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws, allowing greater industry involvement in environmental reviews of projects and diminishing the role climate change plays in those assessments.

The changes target the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires agencies to evaluate how pipelines, highways and some oil and gas development affects the environment and nearby communities.

The law has been a repeated target of President Trump, who has vowed to speed the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure and eliminate barriers to construction projects. Continue reading.

Trump proposes change to environmental rules to speed up highway projects, pipelines and more

Washington Post logoPresident Trump on Thursday proposed a change to 50-year-old regulations that would speed the development of new mines, pipelines and hundreds of other projects around the country, including some that could harm the environment and accelerate climate change. The move also could prevent communities from having as much say about what gets built in their backyards.

The proposed rules would narrow the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires federal agencies to assess the impact of a major project before a spade of dirt is turned and to include the public in the process.

And it would mean that communities would have little say about what is built in their neighborhoods. Environmental groups, tribal activists and others have used the law to delay or block a slew of infrastructure, mining, logging and drilling projects since it was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970. Continue reading.

EPA’s proposed ‘secret science’ rule directly threatens children’s health

The Trump administration is working to weaken U.S. environmental regulations in many areas, from water and air pollution to energy development and land conservation. One of its most controversial proposals is known as the “secret science” rule because it would require scientists to disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, in order for their findings to be considered in shaping regulations.

This proposal would drastically limit what kinds of scientific and medical research the Environmental Protection Agency can draw on as it makes policy. According to press reports, an EPA advisory panel with many members appointed by President Trump has criticized the rule, saying it will do little to increase transparency and may limit what kinds of research get done. Continue reading “EPA’s proposed ‘secret science’ rule directly threatens children’s health”