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Until its final weeks, the Trump administration is working to drive dozens of environmental setbacks that could weaken centuries-old protections for migratory birds, expand Arctic drilling, and cripple future regulation of public health threats.
Pending changes, benefiting oil, gas and other industries, deepen challenges for US President-elect Joe Biden, who made the restoration and advancement of protections for the environment, climate and health Post a centerpiece of your campaign.
Ed Andrieski / AP
A red-tailed hawk feeding a snake to one of its nestlings at the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colorado. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 is a vital tool in protecting more than 1,000 species of birds, including hawks and other raptors.
“We’re going to see a real scorched earth effort here in the tail of the administration,” said Brian Rutledge, vice president of the National Audubon Society.
The proposed changes cap four years of unprecedented environmental deregulation by President Donald Trump, whose administration has worked to fundamentally change the way federal agencies apply and enforce the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act. and other protections.
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Most of the changes are expected to go through the approval process, which includes the White House releasing the final version and publication in the Federal Register.
Some decisions, if they go into effect, will be easy for Biden to reverse. He has already pledged to return the United States to the Paris climate agreement as a first step in his own $ 2 trillion climate plan. But he faces years of work in the courts and within the agencies to repair Trump’s major cuts to the nation’s environmental protection framework.
Evan Vucci / AP
President Donald Trump has launched an attack on environmental standards in the United States.
A change Trump wants to push would restrict criminal prosecution of the industries responsible for the deaths of the country’s migratory birds. Hawks and other birds that migrate through the central U.S. to nesting areas in the Great Plains navigate deadly threats, from electrocution on power lines to wind turbines that blow them out of the air and into waste pits. from oil fields where landing birds die in toxic water.
Right now, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 is a vital tool in protecting more than 1,000 species of birds, including hawks and other raptors.
Federal prosecutors are using the law to recover damages, including $ 100 million from BP for a 2010 oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed more than 100,000 seabirds.
But the Trump administration wants to make sure that companies don’t face criminal liability for such unintentional and preventable deaths.
Federal officials advanced the changes to the bird treaty to the White House, one of the final steps before its adoption, two days after news organizations declared Biden the winner of the presidential race.
For the industry, “that’s important,” said Rachel Jones, vice president of the National Manufacturers Association. Jones lobbied for changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act at a meeting last year between private sector representatives and staff from the White House and the Department of the Interior.
David Goldman / AP
Ice in the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska. The Trump administration is working to drive dozens of environmental rollbacks.
“It really matters in relation to the infrastructure we need for a modern society.”
Previous measures by the Trump administration, now facing legal challenges, remove protections for millions of miles of waterways and wetlands, reduce protections for wildlife species facing extinction, and open up more than hundreds of millions of acres. from public lands to oil and gas. drilling.
When asked about the momentum now, as Trump and many of his supporters continue to deny their electoral defeat, Environmental Protection Agency spokesman James Hewitt said: “The EPA continues to advance this administration’s commitment to significant environmental progress. while moving forward with our regulatory reform agenda. “
Pushing for new rules to be recorded before the end of a president’s term is not unusual – former Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush did it, said Cary Coglianese, an expert in administrative law and rulemaking at the University of Pennsylvania Carey. Law School.
Obama’s agency heads, after a Trump victory in 2016 that surprised many, pushed for rules that sought to protect funding for Planned Parenthood and toughen pollution rules in the oil and gas industries, among others.
But environmentalists and some former federal officials said the actions being taken in Trump’s final days reflect a pro-industry agenda taken to the extreme, disregarding endangered wildlife, climate change and damage to health. human by air pollution.
Charlie Riedel / AP
Hawks and other birds that migrate through the central U.S. to nesting areas in the Great Plains navigate deadly threats, from electrocution on power lines to wind turbines that blow them out of the air and into waste pits. from oil fields where landing birds die in toxic water.
“What we are seeing in the end is what we have seen all along, which is an allegiance to private interests over public interests,” said David Hayes, a former undersecretary of the Department of the Interior under Obama and now an adjunct professor at New College. of Law from the University of York.
“They seem determined to finish them off as some kind of ideological point.”
Many of the final setbacks that are still pending under the Trump administration have significant implications for oil and gas companies. That includes the administration’s steps this week toward selling power leases at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Monday’s announcement (local time) of the upcoming sale drew reprimands from environmentalists and Democrats in Congress.
Brett Hartl of the Center for Biological Diversity said drilling supporters are playing long-term and know that another pro-drilling Republican administration will come in time.
“Every time you officially have an area under lease … it makes it more difficult to keep the land protected in the long term,” Hartl said.
Another proposal that reached the White House last week would set emission standards for small but dangerous particles of pollution emitted by refineries and other industrial sources.
Robin Loznak / AP
A rough-legged hawk feeds on a rodent in a field near Great Falls, Montana. Federal officials have advanced the changes to the bird treaty to the White House, one of the final steps before its adoption.
Other changes would allow more drilling and mining on thousands of square kilometers of public lands around New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon National Historical Park and deep into Alaska.
The Trump administration from its early days pursued US “energy dominance,” in which imported oil would no longer be needed and US companies would produce a surplus of fuels that could be sold to other countries.
Completing the pending changes is critical to maintaining the nation’s “energy leadership”, said American Petroleum Institute Senior Vice President Frank Macchiarola.
For the oil and gas industry, he said, opening the Arctic refuge to drilling was long overdue and would provide jobs and necessary income for the state of Alaska.
Trump’s critics are looking to two pending Senate races in Georgia to understand how easily any of his administration’s last-minute changes can be undone.
If Democrats win both, they will control the Senate and House and be in a position to invoke the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to repeal the recently passed regulations.
Otherwise, outside parties could sue or the Biden administration would have to undertake the often lengthy process of reversing the changes that are fully enacted before Trump leaves office.
“Regulations are not like diamonds,” said Coglianese, Penn’s law professor. “They don’t last forever.”
