Trump’s Biggest Anti-Environmental Fail

He did his best to destroy EPA completely. But his devastating budget proposals got nowhere.

Trump was awful for the environment. But he wanted to be even worse. If Trump had had his way, only shreds of key environmental agencies would now be left. Although Trump has certainly succeeded in weakening them, the cores of the agencies remain intact. Without them, Biden’s task would be much harder.

Trump’s budgets unvaryingly called for eviscerating or even zeroing-out environment-related agencies. In 2017, with his first budget proposal, everyone panicked at the prospect. But even when the GOP completely controlled Congress, his budget proposals were miserable failures.

Take EPA. Trump’s 2017 budget proposal called for cutting EPA’s budget by 31%, reducing the budget to $5.7 billion and cutting 3200 jobs. Even Scott Pruitt thought that was too much. Yet, year after year, Trump has renewed the same budget-cutting efforts. Here’s what came out of Congress:

Fiscal Year

Enacted Budget

Workforce

FY 2019

$8,849,488,000

14,172

FY 2018

$8,824,488,000

14,172

FY 2017

$8,058,488,000

15,408

FY 2016

$8,139,887,000

14,779

What you can see is that EPA’s budget went up by $710 million, and it lost only 600 jobs from FY 2016. There was a temporary bump up in FY 2017 which went away in FY 2018, but except for that, the situation has been quite stable. (This isn’t to say the current numbers are good — EPA really needs to grow to do its job properly).

Last year’s budget was even a bigger loss for the Administration. The President proposed an EPA budget of $6 billion, a 32% cut from the FY2019 appropriation. But Congress instead appropriated $9 billion — the biggest EPA budget ever. The biggest defeat was on regional programs targeting areas like the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. Trump wanted cuts of about 95%; instead, Congress provided an 11% increase. Undaunted, this year Trump is again calling for a 27% cut at EPA. With luck, this will result in another backlash from Congress and a further increase in EPA’s budget for 2021.

Another example is ARPA-E, the research office at the Department of Energy that funds cutting-edge new technologies. Trump has tried to eliminate ARPA-E completely time and again. This has gotten nowhere with Congress. In FY 2018, the program got $353 billion from Congress, which went up to $366 billion in 2019, and the FY 2020 budget went up 16% to $424 million. This year Trump is once more trying to axe the problem, and will undoubtedly once more fail. The ARPA-E story is especially dramatic, but Trump sought heavy cuts in all renewable energy and environmental science programs, and failed to get them.

In November 2016, just after Trump’s election, I wrote a threat assessment of risks to environmental law. I said then that “[a]s in the Bush Administration, budget cuts are probably the greatest single threat.” There’s no doubting Trump’s implacable desire to wipe out environmental protection. But on this front, at least, he was a total failure. That leaves Joe Biden with a solid foundation for his environmental actions.

3 Replies to “Trump’s Biggest Anti-Environmental Fail”

I really like your column. Have you seen my book, “Fighting Pollution and Climate Change: An EPA Veterans’ Guide How to Join in Saving Our Life on Planet Earth”? Check it out at website below – all reviews are outstanding or five-star. I will send you a complimentary copy if you would like to review it in your column and provide your postal mailing address.

Trump was against any law, regulation, Executive Order, Treaty(Paris Accords or Initiative that Obama and the Democrats supported or enacted. He appointed a coal industry lawyer-lobbyist to head up the EPA.
Trump and the Republicans hate science and don’ accept the fact of climate change. Since they get so much campaign contributions from the profit addicted fossil fuel industry, their philosophy is : :drill, dig, pump, ship burn and the environment be damned.” They won’t be satisfied until every last ounce of coal, every last drop of oil and every last cubit foot of natural gas is extracted and burned as we cook and have extreme storms, hurricanes, floods, storm surges, droughts and wild fires. They don’t understand or care that “Mother Nature Bats Last” and we as a planet, species and ecosystem will be destroyed unless we stop burning fossil fuel, capture and sequester carbon dioxide and transition to renewable energy now. We have the technology and natural resources to do it now. All we lack is the political will. Because the greedy, dirty fossil fuel industry has bought our elected leaders off in both parties from the Federal, state and local governments by their campaign contributions and promises of jobs. Yes, even Joe Biden thinks we can use fracking safely and we need natural gas as a “transition fuel” until renewable energy is ready. He has a “moderate position on climate change.” And he is against the “Green New Deal.” Contrary to the propaganda “we will not starve and freeze in the dark,” nor “wreck our economy by transitioning to renewable energy by 2050.” Just look at Germany and other nations around the world.

Dan Farber says:

November 13, 2020 at 9:51 am

Paul — Let’s discuss this off-line. My email is [email protected]

Comments are closed.

Reader Comments

Richard Emory says:

November 12, 2020 at 8:59 am

I really like your column. Have you seen my book, “Fighting Pollution and Climate Change: An EPA Veterans’ Guide How to Join in Saving Our Life on Planet Earth”? Check it out at website below – all reviews are outstanding or five-star. I will send you a complimentary copy if you would like to review it in your column and provide your postal mailing address.
Paul Roden says:

November 13, 2020 at 7:42 am

Trump was against any law, regulation, Executive Order, Treaty(Paris Accords or Initiative that Obama and the Democrats supported or enacted. He appointed a coal industry lawyer-lobbyist to head up the EPA.
Trump and the Republicans hate science and don’ accept the fact of climate change. Since they get so much campaign contributions from the profit addicted fossil fuel industry, their philosophy is : :drill, dig, pump, ship burn and the environment be damned.” They won’t be satisfied until every last ounce of coal, every last drop of oil and every last cubit foot of natural gas is extracted and burned as we cook and have extreme storms, hurricanes, floods, storm surges, droughts and wild fires. They don’t understand or care that “Mother Nature Bats Last” and we as a planet, species and ecosystem will be destroyed unless we stop burning fossil fuel, capture and sequester carbon dioxide and transition to renewable energy now. We have the technology and natural resources to do it now. All we lack is the political will. Because the greedy, dirty fossil fuel industry has bought our elected leaders off in both parties from the Federal, state and local governments by their campaign contributions and promises of jobs. Yes, even Joe Biden thinks we can use fracking safely and we need natural gas as a “transition fuel” until renewable energy is ready. He has a “moderate position on climate change.” And he is against the “Green New Deal.” Contrary to the propaganda “we will not starve and freeze in the dark,” nor “wreck our economy by transitioning to renewable energy by 2050.” Just look at Germany and other nations around the world.
1. Dan Farber says:
  
  November 13, 2020 at 9:51 am
  
  Paul — Let’s discuss this off-line. My email is [email protected]