Tag Archives: Trump

What You Should Know About Biden’s EPA

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Photo: Gage Skidmore

 

“A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear.” President Biden made clear in his Inaugural Address that addressing environmental degradation would be a high priority for his administration. Repairing an EPA weakened by the Trump administration will be key to making that happen, but just what kind of EPA is Biden inheriting from the Trump administration before him?

 

How did Trump change the EPA?

In a word: rollbacks. During his term as President, Trump completed 98 rollbacks of environmental policy. Most of these involved the EPA.

EPA rollbacks under Trump left critical wetland habitats unprotected and weakened limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and vehicles. Rules on the disposal of coal ash and other air pollutants were eroded. Rollbacks allowed facilities that pollute the environment to emit more hazardous materials without fearing that the EPA would find them in violation of rules.

The Trump EPA reduced inspections of polluting facilities, and even gave facilities advance warning of inspections, lessening their effectiveness.

Trump’s limitations on inspecting facilities that pollute and weaker rules to enforce added up. The number of EPA cases against polluters plummeted under the Trump administration.

Trump also made it more difficult for the EPA to make new rules with an arbitrary “one in, two out” executive order requiring the EPA to rescind two rules for every new one implemented. 

We are already seeing the consequences of Trump’s EPA. Deaths due to air pollution in the US have increased, at least in part because of weakened enforcement on air pollution. 

And none of this includes how Trump set the nation back in addressing the global climate crisis!

 

What has Biden’s EPA done so far?

The rollbacks are being rolled back, and progress is being  made- but slowly.

Biden issued an executive order directing agencies to “hold polluters accountable”, signaling that the EPA may get its enforcement groove back. 

He has also revoked some Trump-era executive orders that hindered the regulatory role of the EPA, including the “one in, two out” rule.

The Senate confirmed the appointment of Michael Regan, former head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, as EPA Administrator. In his former role, Regan focused on environmental justice and increasing inspection capacity — areas that were not a priority for the Trump administration.

Immediately upon taking office, Biden established a White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council within the EPA. This demonstrates a renewed effort to address the  disproportionate harms that environmental hazards pose to marginalized communities in the US.

 

What does Biden want to accomplish for the environment?

Biden has centered his environmental agenda around job creation. The American Jobs Plan, announced on March 31, but not yet put before Congress, reflects this.

The American Jobs Plan  focuses on improving physical infrastructure. Environmental health will improve as infrastructure improves, at least in theory.

Under this plan, transportation policy would get an overhaul. Federal funding for public transportation would double, so transit systems could hire more employees, serve more riders, and keep cars off the road, reducing emissions. 

The government would make massive investments in electric vehicle production, making American transportation more compatible with sources of renewable energy in the long term. 

The plan also includes investments in developing resilience against climate-driven disasters like hurricanes.

Provisions for improved utilities aim to put the nation on track for carbon-free electricity by 2035. Buildings all over the US, especially those used for public housing, are slated to be retrofitted for energy efficiency.

The plan also calls for the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps to get more Americans working in climate resilience and conservation efforts while bolstering labor unions.

The fate of this $2.2 trillion plan rests with Congress. The Biden administration is meeting with leaders on Capitol Hill to drum up bipartisan support. Biden hopes to have the plan passed by this summer.

 

What if the plan doesn’t pass through Congress?

Luckily for the Biden administration, some of what is included in the American Jobs Plan can be accomplished by executive order.

Some of what is not possible through executive order is possible through corporate action, according to John Kerry, Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate. For example, the transition from gas and diesel to electricity-powered vehicles looks inevitable, and companies are planning for the electric future accordingly. The biggest companies in America are moving towards a greener marketplace, and “no politician in the future is going to undo this.”

 

What does the American Jobs Plan have to do with the EPA?

If passed as proposed, the American Jobs Plan would give the EPA the funding necessary to accomplish long-held environmental goals. 

The American Jobs Plan includes $45 billion to replace all of America’s lead water service lines. This would mean that no community in the US ever suffers water-borne lead poisoning again. 

Other water infrastructure is up for an overhaul, too. $56 billion will be offered to states, tribes, and communities in grants and low-cost loans to revamp waste, storm, and drinking water systems.

Funding these projects is good for environmental and economic health, as evidenced by the 300,000 jobs created over the last two years by EPA water infrastructure programs. 

The plan also includes $5 billion to clean up contaminated Superfund and Brownfields sites, and to develop the workforce necessary for cleanup. 

Surprisingly, school buses are another target of the EPA under the American Jobs Plan. The plan provides for 20% of yellow school buses in the US to run on electricity instead of diesel. This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve student and driver health.

 

Between reversing  Trump-era environmental rollbacks and implementing the measures of the American Jobs Plan if it passes, the EPA under Biden has a lot of work to do. As American lives are lost due to environmental dangers and the climate crisis looms, getting the job done is more important than ever before.

EPA Under Attack: Legacies of Deregulation by Reagan, Bush, and Trump

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Photo: US Environmental Protection Agency

 

Donald Trump prevented the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from protecting the environment effectively, but he wasn’t the first US President to do so. In a 2018 paper in the American Journal of Public Health, Leif Fredrickson and colleagues examine the impacts that Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump have had on the EPA.

Why care about this history lesson?

Looking at how these former Presidents used staffing, deregulation, and science to take the EPA apart in the past offers key insights into how President Biden can put the agency back together again today and how to fend off attacks on the EPA in the future.

Let’s look at EPA staffing.

Reagan was the first to hinder the EPA’s mission through staffing. Reagan’s EPA turned down experts with experience in federal government in favor of anti-regulation legislators and industry veterans from fossil fuel companies like Exxon to fill leadership positions. Reagan’s EPA Administrator, Anne Gorsuch, slashed staff by 21% in her two years heading the agency. 

Trump’s EPA took after Reagan when it comes to staffing. The advice of energy executives was prioritized over those of career employees. Trump-proposed staff cuts matched the numbers of the Reagan years, though the Trump proposals did not pass. 

The EPA was sidelined by the anti-regulation priorities of all three presidencies Fredrickson studied.

Under Reagan, deregulation was the name of the EPA’s game. The agency’s Office of Enforcement was dissolved, giving industry less reason to take environmental rules seriously. Reagan’s EPA listened when industry figures complained about regulations such as those phasing out the use of leaded gasoline. It was only after public outcry that the phaseout continued unimpeded.

Bush’s EPA was anti-regulation in subtler ways. Instead of rejecting regulatory action, the EPA avoided having to take action at all by strategically delaying until the chance to act had passed. This was true of chances to strengthen the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. 

Trump took after Reagan with his deregulatory approach to the EPA, but he added his own flair. In an executive order,  Trump required repealing two rules for every new rule enacted, hindering the EPA’s rulemaking ability. Trump’s EPA also repealed the Clean Power Plan, a policy which promised to save lives by reducing particulate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

These administrations manipulated environmental science to suit their political goals without hesitation.

Bush was, frankly, a nightmare for environmental science in the EPA. Under Bush, industry actors gained the right to challenge scientific analyses, slowing the regulatory process. Bush’s EPA gummed up the works of climate science by playing up scientific uncertainty around climate change and prohibiting agency employees from even mentioning the phenomenon.

Trump combined approaches to science from the Reagan and Bush administrations. Like Bush, Trump obscured climate science in EPA resources and discussions. Trump’s EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, planned debates to hash out questions about climate science that have long been settled. Like Reagan, Trump contested the regulation of hazardous materials despite evidence of their dangers. Pruitt overturned a ban on a pesticide that is dangerous to pregnant people and children when ingested in any amount.

Trump seemed like a unique threat to the EPA during his term. In hindsight, he just adapted the worst of Reagan and Bush strategies for his own bombastic brand of governance.

What does all of this tell us about what’s next for the EPA under President Joe Biden?

Just as staffing, regulation, and science can be used to weaken the EPA, restoring their roles at the EPA can strengthen the agency. Biden is already using executive orders to address climate change and return enforcement capabilities to the EPA. How he will “build back better,” as was his mantra on the campaign trail, remains to be seen.

In the long run, no single executive order is going to make environmental health invulnerable to political whims. Nothing is preventing another Trump, Bush, or Reagan from winning the presidency, mismanaging the EPA, and putting our health and our planet’s health in danger. The best we can do is inform ourselves and others on the environmental legacies of our Presidents (as Fredrickson and his colleagues have with this paper) and fight for political candidates who will use the EPA for environmental protection, as it is intended.

Full Steam Ahead: How American High-Speed Rail Can Pull Even with China

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As an environmentalist, there isn’t much I’m looking forward to from the Trump administration. In his first 100 days, Trump has promised to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, ease regulations on fossil fuel production, and slash the EPA’s budget. But there is one thing the president-elect and I do agree on: our rail network is the laughing-stock of the world. Or, as Trump put it, the Chinese “have trains that go 300 miles per hour. We have trains that go chug-chug-chug.”

As simplistic as Trump’s comparison is, he has a point: access to high-speed rail is simply not a priority in the U.S. like it is in China. In 2003, Liu Zhijun, a charismatic businessman-turned-politician, known for his comb-over and “glamour” — sound familiar? — happened to be the Chinese Minister of Railways. He set out to build 7,500 miles of high-speed rail, more than any country had ever done before, and in five short years, the first high-speed rail lines were up and running, albeit at almost twice the cost that was projected.

 

Map of Chinese and Japanese high-speed rail systems as of 2015. /Wikipedia.

 

Meanwhile, the fastest American rail line is the Acela Express, which connects Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. and averages a meager 68 miles per hour. Increasing cost of airfare and TSA restrictions are fueling the growing support for high-speed rail nationally, but Americans are still being forced to make do with subpar passenger rail service. In 2011, President Obama declared that high speed rail would serve every four out of five Americans in twenty-five years. Five years later, there is only one high-speed rail project underway in the U.S.

A 500-mile high-speed rail line was narrowly approved by Californians in 2008. When completed, it will connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours, reaching a top speed of over 200 miles per hour — just as fast as European and Asian bullet trains. Taking the train would then be twice as fast as driving, and comparable to flying if you account for security lines and check-in.

 

The high-speed rail line will eventually connect San Diego and Sacramento too. The privately funded XpressWest will provide high-speed service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 80 minutes. /California High-Speed Rail Authority.

The high-speed rail line will eventually connect San Diego and Sacramento too. The privately funded XpressWest will provide high-speed service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 80 minutes. /California High-Speed Rail Authority.

 

The catch? Despite being marketed at $33 billion, the price tag has nearly doubled. Additionally, the first 119-mile stretch of the line was supposed to be completed by 2018, but now is slated for completion in 2022. At this rate, it will take over a decade for publicly funded high-speed rail to be a reality in America.

Due to the delays and its rising price tag, the project has started to fall into disfavor with Californians. Critics have regarded these initial challenges as signs that high-speed rail will never come to the U.S., calling the high-speed rail project a “social science experiment.”

In this respect, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the success of China’s high-speed rail system. First, it has proven that return on investment for high-speed rail is well worth the initial cost. As lawmakers fret about the ballooning cost of the high-speed rail project in California, the state will spend almost four times the cost of the rail line on road infrastructure by the time the rail line is completed. And unlike roads, high-speed rail lines can become profitable fairly quickly. China’s Beijing-Shanghai line, which was built in 2011, posted a profit in 2014, three years ahead of schedule, and is predicted to be paid off entirely by 2028.

 

Of the roughly $15 to $16 billion dollars set aside for transportation in California's 2016-17 budget, high-speed rail only accounted for 15%. /Legislative Analyst's Office

Of the roughly $15 to $16 billion dollars set aside for transportation in California’s 2016-17 budget, high-speed rail only accounted for 15%. /Legislative Analyst’s Office

 

Second, China has demonstrated that high-speed rail can have a positive environmental impact. Seven of the ten most polluted U.S. cities are in California, and the reason is clear: freeways in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose are among the most congested in the United States. While Chinese air quality continued to worsen following the introduction of high-speed rail in 2008, moving away from transportation powered by fossil fuels played an important role in mitigating air pollution levels when they peaked in 2014. Recent decreases in smog levels provide good reason to believe that air quality in China is on the up and up. Relying on 100% renewable energy and diverting tens of millions of passengers from flying or driving annually, the new high-speed rail line in California will easily offset the greenhouse gas emissions from construction and reduce smog along major corridors.

Lastly, ambition was key to the success of Chinese high-speed rail. In China, a big personality single-handedly paved the way for one of the largest infrastructure projects in modern history; there is no reason to think that the biggest personality on the national stage in America couldn’t do the same. In his acceptance speech, Trump promised to build the “railways of tomorrow,” and unlike a wall spanning the length of the Mexican-American border, thousands of miles of high-speed rail projects is certainly a way to be a remembered. Just ask Liu Zhijun.