Environment

In December 2018, Smart Dissent wrote that the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency was expected to propose changing the definition of “Waters of the U.S.” to erase federal protections on some waters, shrinking the number of waterways that are protected from industry pollutants.  They were purposely seeking to weaken federal clean water rules designed to protect millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams nationwide from pesticide runoff and other pollutants.

FIVE ALARM FIRE.  Now it's a reality.  

Under a new plan released August 23, 2019, hundreds of thousands of acres inside what used to be Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument will be available for mining

It’s shocking to see the Navy drop its climate change task force. The climate crisis is a serious security issue and our Armed Forces need to be prepared.  Our military needs to be able to do their jobs. It will be more difficult and costly if ignored.

The Navy has quietly stood down its Task Force Climate Change, created in 2009 to plan and develop "future public, strategic, and policy discussions" on the issue.

Trump has instructed his Republican Agriculture Secretary to exempt Alaska's 16,700,000 acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions.  This could potentially open up more than half of Tongass—the world's largest intact temperate rain forest—to logging, mining and energy projects.

Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago.

We’re experiencing more natural disasters than ever before. Climate change is only making them more deadly. Now, Trump is taking critical money from FEMA to further his cruel anti-immigration agenda.

The Trump administration plans to shift at least $155 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief fund to support its policy of returning some migrants to Mexico.

M-44s are horrific death traps full of cyanide that kill thousands of unsuspecting animals every year INCLUDING pets.

Despite overwhelming public opposition, the Trump administration just reauthorized their use.

Trump Administration is driving out scientists.  Rod Schoonover was, until recently, a senior analyst in Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department. He also worked as director of environment and natural resources at the National Intelligence Council and was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Yes, you read that headline correctly.  Trump and EPA head Andrew Wheeler are lifting safeguards that protect communities from toxic coal ash pollution and letting corporate polluters threaten access to clean air and water.

The Trump administration on Wednesday [7/31/19] proposed scrapping restrictions on arsenic-laden waste from coal-fired power plants. 

It’s almost as if the president of the United States is trying to protect the oil and gas industry. Actually, that’s exactly what it is.

In the biggest blow he’s dealt to the renewable energy industry yet, Trump decided on Monday [July 1, 2019] to slap tariffs on imported solar panels.  The U.S. will impose duties of as much as 30 percent on solar equipment made abroad, a move that threatens to handicap a $28 billion industry that relies on parts made abroad for 80 percent of its supply.

Senate just confirmed former Dow Chemical lawyer Peter Wright to run EPA’s Superfund toxic cleanup program. He once described himself in a court deposition as Dow’s “dioxin lawyer,” and his former lawyer is linked to hundreds of toxic sites nationwide.