Trump's Anti-Environment Agenda is Unacceptable
CARLY KABOT: Pushing an anti-environment agenda amidst a global pandemic is utterly unacceptable. Aggressively rolling back environmental regulations epitomizes Trump’s willingness to jeopardize the health of the United States— its citizens, security, and standing as a global leader. His reckless, ignorant actions should be a break of trust with the American people.
On March 26, 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would significantly relax environmental rules in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The EPA will not impose penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations, which were enacted to safeguard human health. While businesses are still expected to comply with regulations when practical, citing violations as a consequence of coronavirus will protect them from accountability.
"EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment, but recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from COVID-19,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on their decision. His contradictory statement highlights the failure to understand how the environment and infectious diseases are tightly linked. As this administration shamelessly exacerbates climate change, the world is struggling through what may be one of many pandemics to come.
Environmental advocates, legislators, and experts have called out the hypocrisy of this decision intended to disguise and distract the American public. Cynthia Giles, a former senior EPA enforcement official during the Obama administration, expressed that the EPA "relinquished its fundamental authority." As Former Obama-era EPA chief Gina McCarthy put it, the announcement handed oil and gas companies "an open license to pollute." The administration exploited “an unprecedented public-health crisis to do favors for polluters that threaten public health," McCarthy continued.
This decision is only one of many steps the Trump administration has taken to deregulate the environment. A deregulation tracker from the Brookings Institution monitors a selection of delayed, repealed, and new rules, notable guidance, and policy revocations— revealing how far this government has gone to undo years of progress. The EPA did not make this announcement with the well-being of this nation in mind. Instead, this action is a gross breach of their mission to “protect human health and the environment.” Under the Trump administration, it is clear that the mission has become to protect the economic interests of the few— even if it jeopardizes the health of all.
With biodiversity decreasing faster than ever before, the risk of new infectious diseases is significantly heightened. Three-quarters of new human diseases, such as COVID-19, like Ebola, SARS, bird flu, are believed to have originated in animals. 1 million species of plants and animals are under the threat of extinction. If their habitats continue to be decimated by human behavior, the consequence on the global ecosystem will be catastrophic. As we force animals from their natural environment, we face the risk of being exposed to viruses the human body was never meant to contract.
While we can continue to coddle ourselves from the truth, not all viruses are freaks of nature. Rather, they are a product of how we have treated nature— as something we can abuse, waste, and destroy. Too often, we see the world around us as unliving. Coronavirus has rendered us powerless, forcing us to be aware of our smallness, fragility, and mortality. As we stare out our windows and watch spring come into full bloom, we are reminded that we are only one of 8.7 million species. It is only when our world came to a standstill that we saw how the world goes on without us. The natural resources we are dependent on are a lot better off with our countries on lockdown.
Human health is not a partisan issue. However, Trump— and the members of his party who refuse to speak out— have turned it into one.
Carly Kabot is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service from Westchester, New York. She is an aspiring political journalist.