It is all quite shocking.
By withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, President Trump dismissed the advice of his daughter Ivanka, Secretary of State Tillerson and business leaders from Apple, Walmart – even Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell! – who recommended that we remain party to the agreement.
That puts the U.S., the greatest historic emitter of greenhouse gases (the main driver of climate change) at odds with 195 other nations. We can now claim the dubious distinction of having something in common with Syria and Nicaragua, the two other members of the U.N. climate group that are not participating in the accord.
In doing so, the president turned his back on advisers and three energy giants that accept the risk of climate change and know our economic future is in clean energy. Instead, he favored conservatives from fossil fuel-dependent states and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, former attorney general of oil-producing Oklahoma and a known climate change skeptic, who have the most to gain in the short-term.
This action leaves the U.S. firmly rooted in the past and starkly on its own with a myopic plan to accelerate the development of publicly-owned fossil-fuel resources. In his remarks on withdrawing from the agreement, the president emphasized his administration’s current focus on “aggressively unlocking restrictions on America’s abundant energy reserves.”
In support of this goal, the Trump administration, and the Republican-controlled Congress that supports it, is systematically dismantling plans and policies designed to address climate change and ensure a measured and balanced approach to energy resource conservation and development nationwide, both on- and off-shore.
In a May 2 article in The New York Times, “23 Environmental rules rolled back in Trump’s first 100 days,” Nadja Popovich and Tatiana Schlossberg chronicle the actions that support this undoing, which have not stopped in the month since the article published.
On May 11, the U.S. Department of Interior suspended until September the activity of more than 200 Bureau of Land Management Resource Advisory Councils, committees and boards across the country. RACs are composed of public land users such as ranchers, outdoor recreationists, energy industry representatives and conservationists. They are the stakeholder groups DOI Secretary Ryan Zinke should be listening to right now.
On Wednesday, Zinke signed a new secretarial order that makes, in his words, “Alaska open for business.” The new order dismisses a 2013 management plan developed via public process that earmarks half the 23.6 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve for conservation and half for development.
The order attempts to open new sections of the reserve to oil and gas leasing and to revise the resource assessment for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its 1.5-million-acre coastal plain. It also sets in motion a review of offshore drilling along U.S. coasts overturning a ban President Obama instituted in December.
Because of concern about limits and lawsuits the Paris accord would have placed on Trump’s new “energy dominant” strategy for America, the U.S.’s withdrawal can now be added to the list of public agreements he dismisses or is dismantling.
In addition to the decision being short-sighted, harmful to our environment, economy and global standing, the problem with this aggressive approach to developing fossil-fuel resources is its complete disregard for public process – past, present and future. Many of the rules and policies already repealed or under review were developed through rigorous public planning processes that, by law, must be conducted.
With the public standing in its way, the administration is instead taking bold action to suppress, rather than solicit, public input.
Suspending the RACs especially makes no sense and runs counter to the stated rationale for Trump’s executive order calling for a review of national monument designations made since 1996 under the Antiquities Act – “a lack of adequate public outreach and proper coordination with state, tribal and local officials and other relevant stakeholders ...”
At a time when the administration is considering major changes to how public resources are used, is talking of reducing or eliminating national monuments and hastening energy development, RACs and all public processes are critical.
The Antiquities Act was signed into law by Teddy Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. Its anniversary on Thursday is a great day to let your views be known – about the climate, the economy and the future management of our public lands.
