Friday 20 November 2020

Trump gutted environmental protections. How quickly can Biden restore them? (excerpt): GRIST

President Donald Trump hands coal miners the pen he used to sign a bill eliminating
 regulations on the mining industry in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, 
D.C. Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images
Just a month before he won the U.S. presidential election in 2016, Donald Trump vowed to spend his time in office systematically slashing government rules. “I would say 70 percent of regulations can go,” Trump told a crowd of town hall attendees in New Hampshire. “It’s just stopping businesses from growing.”

Now, four years later, it looks like Trump did his best to keep those promises. Over the course of his term, Trump has erased or watered-down dozens upon dozens of regulations designed to keep pollutants out of the water, air, and soil. He has allowed oil and gas companies to leak planet-warming methane into the air. He has told power plants that they can keep emitting dangerous levels of carbon dioxide. If all those rules stand, according to one analysis, they will be responsible for 1.8 billion metric tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.

With President-elect Joe Biden preparing to move into the White


House in January, this anti-environment era is about to come to an end. Biden has promised to re-enter the Paris Agreement, prioritize climate change across the federal government, and push for sweeping clean-energy legislation. But putting the most ambitious plans in place will prove especially difficult if Republicans keep control of the Senate. (Democrats will have one more chance to recapture the chamber in two Georgia runoffs, though they’re facing tough odds.)

 See complete Grist article 

 

Related:  Politicians Try to Rally Support for Coal Despite Economics and Biden Presidential Win (excerpt): DeSmog

 

#climatecriminals, Trump, #fossilfuelcompanies, fossil fuel industry, Biden,

 


 

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