“The consequences of these budget cuts would be vast,” IPS fellow and U.S. policy director at Oil Change International Janet Redman told the Marc Steiner Show, regarding Trump’s proposed budget cuts to federal environmental programs.
Trump’s assault on the climate doesn’t stop with his proposed cuts to the EPA. It also seeks to cut 28 percent of the State Department budget, which is how the U.S. relates internationally to climate change and energy policy,
IPS Climate Policy director Basav Sen said racism and white supremacy and crony capitalism are the underlying sources of the White House’s climate policy.
“People of color and poor people have paid a disproportionate price for the polluting ways of corporate America,” Sen explained. “This led to the creation of environmental justice programs at the EPA which have provided support and data to these communities.”
By trying to get rid of these programs and moving forward with other bad environmental policies like with the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the administration’s message is that they “don’t care about the environment, the future of humanity, or people of color,” Sen argued.
Sen went on to discuss the effects of large fossil fuel companies that have a lot of clout with the current administration. The issue is not about being pro-business, Sen said, it’s about crony capitalism. [...]
The budget cuts also target clean energy research and take away funding for climate action initiatives at the state level. Services that help people are being shifted to state agencies instead of operated on the federal level, which means less enforcement and implementation of provisions such as the Clean Air Act and Water Act, which targets already vulnerable communities, Redman argued.
“If the federal government not only refuses to act, but intends on taking America backwards, there’s a lot that cities and states can do and have done,” Sen said. “Hawaii will be 100 percent renewal energy for their electricity by 2045, Oregon will completely eliminate coal from their electricity supply by 2030, and Washington, D.C. will be 50 percent renewable for electricity by 2032 and simultaneously solarize 100,000 low income homes by then.”
Listen to the full interview on The Marc Steiner Show
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
“By defining the problem as "hunger," the emergency food system is helping to direct our attention away from the more fundamental problem of poverty, and the even more basic problem of inequality.”
~Janet Poppendieck, Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the end of Entitlement
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Brutal dictator in the "Coalition of the Willing":
It's hard to take the Chickenhawk brigades seriously when they rant about Saddam's "brutal regime," when the U.S. names Uzbekistan amongst its "coalition of the willing". From the State Department:
Uzbekistan does not have a free press, and it does not have a democracy. Political opponents have been driven from office. Many have fled, and others have been arrested. Some have been murdered in detention. The police force and the intelligence service use torture as a routine investigation technique.
Not only does the U.S. tolerate this brutal repressive regime, but it proudly lists it as an "ally."
OVERNIGHT NEWS DIGEST • HIGH IMPACT STORIES • TOP COMMENTS
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show, we were back live, and
Greg Dworkin caught us up on the GOP health care bomb and the swirling Russia stories. Can the GOP sneak their bill past the Byrd rule? Gorsuch filibuster may be a go. Attacks in NY and London. And was Trump mysteriously right?
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