BE SMART ABOUT is our unfortunate series highlighting examples of those in power who you need to stay informed about so you can share this knowledge and together we can Be Smart and Actively Dissent.
Today we discuss Steve Gardner, Trump’s choice to head a federal coal mine regulator. Like most of his nominees, Gardner is a vocal critic of the very agency he’s being asked to lead!
While in Utah on last Monday, Trump announced his administration, at the recommendation of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, will dramatically shrink the size of the state's two national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Trump's orders mark the largest reversal of national monument protections in U.S. history.
Trump and his administration are installing people into power whose goal is to destroy the agency they are running. Trump and his administration have and will continue to institute policies that directly harm tens of millions of Americans. These policies and the people in power are causing enormous, disproportionate harm to Trump voters.
In late October, the Environmental Protection Agency didn't like that their scientists would be speaking about climate change so EPA Chair Scott Pruitt banned them from participating.
The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled the speaking appearance of three agency scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference on [in late October] in Rhode Island...
Very few people have heard of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative until early November 2017.
The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a global standard to promote the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources.
The EITI Standard requires information along the extractive industry value chain from the point of extraction, to how the revenue makes its way through the government, to how it benefits the public.
Trump appointed Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt's has worked every day since then to destroy the EPA and he is unfortunately one of the most capable people Trump has put into a position of power. Pruitt is appointing people throughout the EPA to undermine the agency with a crystal clear belief that environmental regulations that protect our people and our world should never impede upon the profits of private corporations and their right to make as much money as possible.
The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is inherent in it's name -- protect our environment and, in doing so, protect our people. EPA head Scott Pruitt is one of the hardest working politicians in D.C. in 2017, efficiently dismantling the EPA as discussed many times on Smart Dissent. This is an EPA already unable to keep up with the massive needs it ought to be filling due to decades of woeful funding and obstruction by the GOP.
Senate Republicans passed a $4 trillion budget blueprint late Thursday by a narrow 51-49 vote, with Kentucky's Senator Rand Paul joining Democrats in opposing the measure considered a key step in forward on President Trump's promises of a tax overhaul. The White House praised the bill, saying it "creates a pathway to unleash the potential of the American economy through tax reform and tax cuts."
In late August, Smart Dissent discussed the destruction of the Environmental Protection Agency occurring behind closed door which will endanger our world forever. Then earlier this month we detailed several additional ways the EPA is doing the opposite of their mission and destroying our environment and future.
