We begin today’s roundup with an analysis from Politico of Donald Trump’s environment speech, which, as expected, was full of lies:
President Donald Trump praised his own environmental record on Monday and attacked the Obama administration's "relentless war" on U.S. energy. But a close look at his rhetoric reveals he is taking credit for pollution reductions that have taken place under previous presidents — and undertaking an aggressive agenda of weakening air and water pollution rules [...]
Environmental advocates say the Trump administration’s track record shows his disregard for the work of the EPA, an agency he said during his campaign he would reduce to “little bits.”
"You can’t cover up two years of an abysmal environmental record with one speech," said Christy Goldfuss, who headed the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Barack Obama and is now senior vice president for energy and environment policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.
From Arden Farhi and Kathryn Watson at CBS News:
Mr. Trump, over the course of his presidency, has undone much of President Obama's environmental achievements, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and rolling back regulations like the Clean Power Plan. The president has also expressed skepticism about government research that shows a warming planet and potentially catastrophic consequences if the trend continues.
And here’s a detailed fact check from Anna Phillips at The Los Angeles Times:
What Trump said: “From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet.”
The record: Air quality has improved in the United States since the 1970s. The passage of the Clean Air Act forced emissions reductions across the country, and that led to less smog. But it would be incorrect to say, as Trump has before, that the U.S. has the cleanest air.
According to the latest Environmental Performance Index, compiled every two years by Yale and Columbia University researchers, America ranks 10th for air quality. Australia, Canada, Denmark and Finland have cleaner air. There are signs that U.S. air quality is deteriorating.
Turning to the census, Ted Hesson at Politico offers up his analysis of why Trump may lose the citizenship question fight:
Eleven days after an unfavorable Supreme Court ruling, a new team of Justice Department attorneys must persuade three district court judges that a June 30 printing deadline a previous DOJ legal team insisted had to be met no longer applies — even though, the Commerce Department said last week, the questionnaires are being printed already. To pass muster with the Supreme Court, the new DOJ team must find a rationale that the high court will rule consistent with regulatory law and also believable — a tough assignment given that the court said in its ruling that the previous rationale was not.
Cristian Farias at The New Yorker points out the census battle is a civil rights issue:
On July 5th, Hazel let the litigation proceed in that direction, allowing the plaintiffs to question under oath as many as five Administration officials and to seek relevant documents. “Plaintiffs’ remaining claims, are based on the premise that the genesis of the citizenship question was steeped in discriminatory motive,” Hazel wrote. This means that, in effect, the battle over the legality of the citizenship question isn’t just one of administrative law, it is now about civil rights.
On a final note, on the topic of corruption, Greg Sargent argues that the Attorney General Barr has on two fronts — census and Obamacare — taken legal positions which serve the president, not the law or the public:
Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan and a former Justice Department lawyer, suggested the two cases are having a similar corrupting influence.
“In both, Barr directed his lawyers to make bad-faith arguments, just because Trump said so,” Bagley told me. “That’s a blow to the integrity of the Justice Department and a threat to the rule of law.”