While fossil fuel industrialists — the most notable being the Koch Brothers — have bankrolled bioskeptics to sow doubts about climate change, the evidence is overwhelming that heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, most of which result from human activities, are transforming the planet. Temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, heat waves and wildfire seasons are getting longer, hurricanes are getting stronger and thawing permafrost in arctic regions threatens to release more methane into the atmosphere.
Still, when Trump took office he pulled the US out of the Paris Accord on climate change, his first step in his effort to undermine Obama-era policies aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Trump’s administration has harassed climate scientists at federal agencies and the White House has proposed to dramatically cut funding for programs supporting research and development of clean energy technologies, such as electric vehicles and solar power.
Trump’s budget for 2020 proposed a 31% cut in the EPA budget, leaving $6.1 billion to implement only the rules industrial lobbyists agree with. Trump would eliminate the EPA’s Global Change Research office, which provides scientific information to policymakers about the threats posed by climate change. Among other things, he also would slash funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) by 87% — from $2.3 billion last year to $343 million in new spending next year.
The White House also proposes eliminating tax credits for electric vehicles and an array of other incentives for reducing carbon emissions. And it makes a third attempt to eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, an incubator for cutting-edge energy research and development.
Congress is not expected to go along with the cuts, but that won’t stop Trump’s minions from trying to sabotage green efforts. After all, Trump last year set aside a compromise carmakers had reached with the Obama administration that had targeted 54.5 miles per gallon for 2025; Trump said 37 mpg would be fine. Then, on Sept. 18, Trump announced plans to revoke California’s long-standing right to set stricter pollution standards for cars and light trucks.
The Justice Department has also announced an antitrust investigation into the deal California reached with four carmakers — Ford, VW, Honda and BMW — who had agreed to hold to California’s stricter emissions and mileage standards.
California and 22 other states have filed legal efforts to protect California’s mandates, which would be 51 mpg by 2026.
While carmakers and people concerned about climate change support the higher standards, the oil industry sees a threat to its bottom line, as a quarter of the world’s oil is used to power cars, and less thirsty vehicles mean lower gasoline sales, the New York Times reported in December 2018.
“Marathon Petroleum teamed up with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive policy group financed by corporations as well as the Koch network, to draft legislation for states supporting the industry’s position. Its proposed resolution … describes current fuel-efficiency rules as ‘a relic of a disproven narrative of resource scarcity’ and says ‘unelected bureaucrats’ shouldn’t dictate the cars Americans drive.”
Revoking the waiver on California’s emissions standards also helps Trump get revenge on the state where Hillary Clinton nearly doubled him up in 2016, and where his approval rating currently sits 30 points underwater, Aaron Rupar noted at Vox. So if Trump can use environmental regulations to act against a state that’s proudly on the cutting edge of fighting climate change, all the better for him.
Trump’s move is likely to be unpopular nationwide and in California, with Americans widely supportive of stricter fuel efficiency standards. A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Sept. 20 found 66% of Americans oppose Trump’s plan to freeze fuel efficiency standards rather than enforce the Obama administration’s targets for 2025, the Washington Post reported.
A nearly identical 67% majority support state governments setting stricter fuel efficiency targets than the federal government.
Trump also kicked Midwestern farmers while they were down in August when the EPA waived ethanol blending requirements for gasoline refineries. First his tariffs prompted China to shut off the market for half of Iowa’s soybean crop. Then his EPA put in doubt the demand for ethanol, which accounts for as much as 40% of the corn crop.
The blowback from enraged farmers caused Trump to order the EPA to increase the amount of ethanol and biodiesel large refiners are required to blend each year to compensate for the exemptions granted to small refiners, Reuters reported Sept. 16.
On the other side, most of the Democratic presidential candidates have issued comprehensive plans to zero out the country’s carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. They differ in how to get there, how they will use sources like nuclear power, how much federal government investment they’ll need, and the political levers they’ll use to enact their visions, Umair Irfan noted at Vox.
Of the top three remaining candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a Green New Deal with the biggest price tag — $16.3 trillion, coming from income taxes from an estimated 20 million new jobs building 100% renewable transportation and electric grid, taxes on fossil fuels, defense budget savings from no longer protecting oil shipping, and selling power via federal marketing authorities.
He would create a climate resilience fund, deploy renewable energy, build a high-voltage direct current network, and support the UN Green Climate Fund.
Sanders proposes to zero out emissions from transportation and power generation by 2030 and “complete decarbonization” of the energy sector by 2050.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has incorporated her climate change agenda into proposals for public lands, the military, trade, manufacturing, and climate risk disclosure. She proposed a $2 trillion green manufacturing plan and, after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee left the race in August, borrowed his vision for reaching 100% clean energy, including a $1 trillion investment in the transition to renewable energy.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who introduced the first climate change bill in the Senate in 1986, has released a $1.7 trillion climate plan roughly in line with the other candidates, pegged to the 2050 deadline. He would provide job training and other assistance for those impacted by the shift away from fossil fuels. He would build 500,000 recharging stations throughout the US to encourage electric vehicles.
Other Democrats in the field have plans to tackle climate change. Republicans have nothing but jeers and hot air. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2019
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