Trump Admin Is Pushing Polluting Fossil Fuels Across United States – CleanTechnica

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People who say that voting doesn’t matter are not paying attention. If you think there’s not a big difference between what Republicans do in control of the US government and what Democrats do, again, you’re just not following politics or policy.

After fighting solar power and wind power in numerous ways, including canceling big wind and solar power plant projects that were already fully approved, the Trump administration is working vigorously to get more coal and gas power plants built or running longer. It is looking to drill for oil illegally and increase pollution from natural gas.

As one example, there’s the $1.44 billion loan the Trump administration is providing to keep 6 old, polluting coal power plants running — potentially for another 20 years! On top of that, the administration has been fast-tracking fossil fuel power plants in Wisconsin, Louisiana,Texas, New Mexico, Montana, and North Dakota.

Then there’s the Trump administration’s harmful delay on methane pollution standards. And there’s the Environmental Protection Agency under Lee Zeldin/Donald Trump deciding to rescind the landmark Endangerment Finding. “The 2009 finding—based on the overwhelming scientific evidence that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases endanger our health, our communities, and our economy by driving global climate change—authorizes the EPA to regulate those emissions under the Clean Air Act from cars and trucks, power plants, aircraft, and other sources. Under a Supreme Court precedent, EPA’s authority means that companies responsible for significant greenhouse gases, like automobile manufacturers, electric power companies, and oil and gas producers, are currently immune from federal common-law lawsuits over their greenhouse gas emissions. But if Trump and Zeldin proceed with their plan to rescind the Endangerment Finding and strip EPA of its authority to control greenhouse gas emissions, those companies’ immunity would disappear, and parties injured by greenhouse emissions may have little option but to pursue federal litigation.” Indeed….

“In late September, it was reported by E&E News that Zeldin planned to move forward with rescinding the finding without proper consideration of the legally required regulatory impact analysis–just days after the public comment period closed,” the Sierra Club writes. “More than 500,000 comments were submitted by members of the public, including a 200-page joint legal comment authored by the Sierra Club alongside the Center for Biological Diversity, Clean Air Task Force, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. That comment can be found here.”

Then there’s the Trump administration’s plans to illegally hold an offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico. “The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) plans to hold an 80-million-acre Gulf oil sale on December 10. In finalizing the offshore oil sale, BOEM announced that it would no longer comply with one of our nation’s bedrock environmental laws — the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — prior to conducting this and 29 additional planned sales in the Gulf through 2040 under the 2025 Reconciliation Act. But the Act does not exempt any offshore lease sales from NEPA,” the Sierra Club writes.

“By failing to comply with NEPA, BOEM is now proceeding without analyzing how this sale of public waters could expose the entire Gulf region to catastrophic oil spills, harm endangered Rice’s whales, and leave behind a dangerous legacy of defunct oil wells, pipelines, and platforms. BOEM also failed to consider how Gulf communities could be harmed by the massive oil sale, even though earlier this year the Department of Justice guaranteed a federal court that the Trump administration would do so.”

The degree to which the Trump administration is pushing pollution onto the American public, pushing fossil fuels while attacking renewable energy, is beyond disappointing. It is disturbing. And it is shameful. We will all suffer from it.