EPA Cuts Cause Potential For Real Harm
D. S. Mitchell
Calamity Politics is a progressive political blog that’s main intention is to improve people’s lives. I’m here again, uncensored and irreverent, raising hell and screaming for attention. I know I’m about 3200 miles from Washington, D.C. but I pray people are aware of the perilous and irresponsible attack on the EPA that is taking place at the hands of the Trump Administration. The Environmental Defense Fund states flatly, “No federal agency has been singled out for such a large and pernicious budget cut as the EPA”.
Approximately 90% of the American people support strong environmental protections. It is an all hands on deck emergency if we will be able to stop President Trump’s efforts to gut the EPA budget, thus eliminating many core environmental safeguards. The government has been transferred into the hands of anti-environment extremists whose goal is profit through fossil fuel extraction over the lives of wildlife and our historic national park system.
Trump and the Congress seem to be on a mission to kill our national parks and destroy our environmental protections. Many lobbyists are sent to Washington paid to convince legislators that relaxing restrictions on the millions of acres of National Parks land would be an economic boom for the country. The goal seems to be directed toward shifting control from the federal government to the individual states, where those treasured resources can be sold, or licensed to the highest bidder for the systematic extraction of gold, silver, oil, gas, coal, and timber.
“How did it become a choice between clean environment and a strong economy?” This shift in public policy will come at a high cost.
The Cost of Trump’s EPA budget:
CLEAN WATER: President Trump’s budget calls for elimination of the Great Lakes Restoration Project The Great Lakes are the largest source of surface freshwater in the world. Over 40 million people take advantage of its drinking water, in both Canada and the United States. After decades of environmental abuse the EPA was working with local governments on the ground work to save this great freshwater resource.
**Predicted Harm: Hundreds of metric tons of fertilizer, manure and sewage flow down the Maumee River and into Lake Erie. Together they become a sickly green toxic algae bloom that grows and blooms into areas hundreds of square miles wide. In 2014, Toledo, Ohio shut down the drinking water for half a million people for three days. The Great Lakes are seriously damaged by toxic waste pollution from farming and industry.
TOXIC CHEMICALS: President Trump’s budget cuts 30% from Supefund cleanup money The EPA’s Superfund program provides money to clean up dangerous chemicals that have been dumped, pumped, or leeched into local communities, thereby threatening residents with exposure to hazardous waste, radioactive materials and toxic chemicals.
**Predicted Harm: There is a list of polluted locations across the United States requiring long term response to clean up hazardous contamination. Areas like picturesque Libby Montana that despite its beauty has an ugly history of decades of vermiculite mining. Libby is the site of the longest-running asbestos cleanup projects in history, costing an estimated $600 million dollars. Despite years of clean up many thousands of residents continue to suffer asbestos related symptoms.
CLEAN AIR: Trump’s budget cuts 32% off EPA grants for state and local air quality In 1970 a bipartisan Congress passed the Clean Air Act to provide comprehensive protection against harmful air pollution. The Clean Air Act has reduced the six most common pollutants in our air by 70%.
**Predicted Harm: EPA provides $760,000 per year for air quality monitoring to Louisville, KY. There is a large chemical plant in the area that emits thousands of pounds of cancer-causing chemical, 1,3 butadiene. Such funding could be reduced or eliminated entirely under President Trump’s EPA budget cuts.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Trump’s budget would eliminate all funding for EPA’s climate work-including the Clean Power Plan, International climate programs and all climate research.
**Predicted Harm: Immediately the Native Inuit people of Alaska. Their Arctic home is on the front lines of climate change. As the Arctic ice melts, the sea levels rise. 600 native people live on a small barrier island that is eroding into the sea. The tribe has voted to move their community to the mainland. The move is expected to cost over $180 million, which is being funded by a number of sources. There is expected to be huge sums spent as New Orleans, Miami, Seattle and Washington, D.C. and many other American cities are threatened by rising sea levels and that fact will not go away, just because Trump refuses to participate in funding research.
Rivers are running dry, glaciers are melting, higher temperatures have led to severe fire seasons, coast lines are eroding, forests are disappearing, many species are just hanging on as migration routes are destroyed, fracking is causing disturbance to land and water systems. The threat is imminent, we must fight back. Call your Senators and Congress persons, let them know you want to maintain the EPA agenda and its funding. We won’t get a second chance to save our precious and treasured land. EPA is essential to the protection of the American public. Fight the power drunk fossil fuel addicts driving the Trump agenda
**Thank you, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club for the statistics and information used in this article.
Join the Resistance
Dar
