By Irene Wright
In the wake of a tumultuous election cycle, the nation is preparing for a Biden presidency. The transition of power is expected to be far from smooth, and while President Trump hangs on to the hope of a second term well past its likelihood, the Biden team has begun preparation for damage control as soon as they step into the White House. Over the course of four years, the country has seen a variety of controversial and polarizing decisions coming out of the Oval Office, from executive orders on law enforcement to going after DREAMers. The new shock factor of the presidency has been the highlight reel of news cycles for just over four years, and while the public was discussing the newest tweet or the most recent scandal, untold damage was being done behind the scenes by those who reached power on Trump’s coattails. This was made abundantly clear the moment the president started making decisions on environmental policy.
The main goal of Trump’s environmental policy plan can be boiled down to one word: deregulation. Promising to be a pro-industry president, his administration worked tirelessly to roll back regulation and protections in order to eliminate “red tape” and governmental oversight. Trump started the anti-environment rhetoric during the campaign, promising to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement and approve the Keystone Pipeline project. While these big-ticket items helped to establish the course of action for the administration, it was the deregulation of existing environmental protections and safeguards that will be the hardest to correct.
In 2016 Trump appointed Scott Pruitt to be the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. This came as one of the most shocking Cabinet-level appointments due to Pruitt’s long history with the fossil fuel industry and had been spent most of his time as Oklahoma Attorney General suing the very agency he would later head. He then spent his two years as EPA administrator advocating for cuts in the department’s budget, blocking scientists from being on policy advisory boards, and putting an end to the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. This plan, which would start regulating carbon emissions in 2022 and require power companies to respond to clean energy incentives, was a significant step forward in national climate change legislation. Officials across multiple fields advocated for the Clean Power Plan with economists claiming the plan could save America $20 billion in climate-related costs as well as provide $34 million in health benefits.
This, in combination with Trump announcing the U.S., would be pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, largely overshadowed all the holes Pruitt was putting in the boat of environmental regulation. In two years Pruitt stopped the ban on neurotoxin chlorpyrifos, lifted control on air pollution from industry, rolled back vehicle efficiency standards, lowered fines on pollution infractions, increased loopholes for diesel truck pollution, removed the words “climate change” and “global warming” from all EPA sites, removed scientists from EPA advisory boards and replaced them with industry officials from oil and coal, tried to eliminate non-replicable research efforts such as research on large oil spill events, and slowed down the timeline for regulation to move through the agency.
Following an unrelated scandal of misuse of funds and improper spending and security practices, Pruitt resigned, hoping to avoid a prison sentence. What seemed like an opportunity to shuffle the EPA administration quickly became even worse than before. Here came Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist and close Trump ally, to continue the work of Pruitt.
Andrew Wheeler gained recognition lobbying for Murray Energy, a company that has paid millions in fines for violating health and safety standards and for knowingly polluting a creek in Ohio with coal slurry. At the time that Murray Energy was Wheeler’s client, they created a plan for the EPA that called for cutting the department nearly in half and suggested overturning rules that limited mercury, carbon, and air pollution across state lines. It was this record that Wheeler brought the EPA, and he continued the work of his former boss, Pruitt.
Over 4 years, the Trump administration and the EPA have rolled back or started the process of rolling back over 100 environmental regulations, protections, and policies. The shock factor of the administration distracted from the severe damage being done. Trump also slipped environmental deregulation into the long list of executive orders so while the media covered the “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” order, Trump and Pruitt were rewording the “Waters of the U.S.” legislation to reduce the number of waterways that were protected. There is also much smaller legislation that is being slowly stripped away. The list includes, but is not limited to, 27 rollbacks on air pollution and emission standards, 19 rollbacks on drilling and extraction regulation, 11 rollbacks on water pollution levels, and 8 rollbacks on toxic substances and safety.
Now as Jan. 20 approaches Biden will not only have to work to further America’s environmental plans, but will have to spend a significant amount of time reinstating policies and protections that were previously in place. There is the potential that things like the Green New Deal, or Biden’s equivalent the “Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice,” will have to be put on hold until the environmental infrastructure is restored. Biden has already stated that he would reinstate the U.S. in the Paris Climate Agreement. While this is a necessary step, it is not much more than a formality since the US only officially left on Nov. 4, 2020. The real change will come with the appointment of an EPA administrator with an emphasis on environmental protection and climate change legislation.