Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America. This week, the Environmental Club took a look at what that may mean for the climate. As Mr. Trump himself can be entirely unpredictable, changing his beliefs depending on who he is speaking with, this article will not only look at what he has said, but the actions and words of the people he has hired to lead our nation on energy and environmental issues. Below is a rundown of Mr. Trump and his leading climate deniers.
Donald Trump ran for president on a platform that pledged to keep oil and gas coming out of the ground, echoing Palin’s “drill baby drill” campaign of 2008. He has said “there is no proof that man-made climate change is a real thing,” and that “Global Climate Change is a hoax by the Chinese.” Since his nomination he has said he will scrap the 2 preeminent climate agreements of the Obama administration – The Paris Climate Deal and the Clean Power Plan. The first was a global agreement to take steps to lower additional warming to below 2 degrees, and the second was a US specific bill to reduce CO2 emissions. Mr. Trump has also said he would dismantle the Waters of the United States Bill, a bill that regulates pollutants in federal waters, and the EPA, the federal body that regulates and protects the environment. These actions will effectively scale back regulations on ozone pollution, open federal lands to Fossil Fuel production, lower the number of federally protected bodies of water, scale back federal spending on renewable energy, slow the momentum of the Paris Climate Deal internationally, and generally work to corrode all the climate centered progress we have made as a country over the past 8 years. He cannot do this alone, and he has appointed a group of climate deniers and complacent schemers to push his agenda and their own. The main group consists of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, Rick Perry as Secretary of Energy, Cathy McMorris as Secretary of the Interior, and Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA.
Before becoming Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson was the CEO of Exxon Mobil, the largest publicly traded Oil Company in the world. He served as CEO for almost 10 years, and we can trace what to expect from him based on what he did there. As soon as he became CEO, Exxon publicly accepted that Climate Change is serious, real, and worth addressing, adding that fossil fuels are a “major source” of climate-changing emissions. At the same time, the company had been assuring stockholders it would be able to extract all the oil in the world. In recent years, Exxon Mobil has made extensive investment in tar sands, which have a devastating impact on the environment. In 2007, the company made a pledge that they would not fund groups that deny climate change, yet they continue to fund such groups today. Additionally, when many of the oil giants urged a global price on carbon during the Paris Climate Talks, Exxon abstained, though the company publicly supports the Paris Agreement. In 2011, Tillerson made a deal with Putin to drill in the Russian Arctic, but this was halted when Obama imposed sanctions in 2013 over the annexation of Crimea. During this time, Tillerson was awarded Russia’s highest honor given to a foreign citizen, the Order of Friendship medal. His deep ties to the oil industry and close connections to Russia – a country with the capacity to drill much more oil – do not bode well for an international push to help combat climate change. Exxon did research into engineering solutions involving biofuels and carbon under Tillerson, but this is a sign of evasion more than action.
Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy under President Trump, is famous for climate denying statements. He recently said, “the science is not settled on this. The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just nonsense. Just because you have a group of scientists who stood up and said, ‘here is the fact.’” He was the longest standing governor in Texas before becoming a director at Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline. In 2011, when attempting a run for president, he forgot the name of the Department of Energy while announcing plans to scrap it. He will likely move forwards with plans to limit the department’s regulations and lower federal investment in renewable energy, as well as encourage pipeline developments like DAPL and Keystone.
Cathy McMorris is Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, the government agency responsible for the management and conservation of federal lands. In the House of Representatives, she served on the committee on Energy and Commerce with a focus on Energy, Environment, and health for the state of Washington. She is known as a “proud climate denier” and oil drilling advocate. As the head of the department of the interior, she will be able to sell off federal lands, shrinking the nation’s National Parks and expanding fracking. Some have called her climate denial ironic as she spent the last year working to combat forest fires in her home state partially caused by drought.
Last, but certainly not least, is Scott Pruitt, who will take over as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He has received scrutiny over this position due to his strong and vocal opposition to the agency itself. Before taking this job he was the Oklahoma Attorney General suing the EPA on two separate counts: the authority of the agency to enforce the Clean Power Plan, and regulations seeking to curtail the emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from the oil and gas sector. He has said that he believes the debate on climate change is “far from settled.” Pruitt has also fought to limit the scope of the federal government in regulating pollution of rivers under the Waters of the United States rule. On his website he describes himself as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” As the leader of the agency, he will work to ensure the EPA is no longer receptive to environmental activists.
