Donald Trump once promised to build a beautiful condo project along the Mexican coast. Though buyers put up $140,000 and more as a deposit, and Trump wined and dined them with promises of an “amazing” condo development on “the most spectacular place in all of Mexico” nothing was ever built. Because Trump’s most spectacular place was actually Mexico’s most polluted beach.
Donald Trump’s planned beachfront resort will be built just north of Baja’s Punta Bandera, where 30 million gallons of sewage are discharged daily on the beach.
Considering how Donald Trump tried to sell people homes on Sewer Beach, it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s treating America’s entire coastline like his own personal toilet.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to slash the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and gut federal funding for NOAA's Sea Grant program.
If you’ve never heard of Sea Grant, that’s because supporting it is not exactly controversial. The program was created all the way back in 1966. It funds projects to help commercial fishermen, to clean up estuaries, and helps communities plan for hurricanes. Why would Donald Trump want to kill a program that’s helped families and communities on both coasts for 50 years?
Though hardly a household name, Sea Grant funds important work, supporting over 3,000 scientists and paying for coastal research through 33 university programs. Sea Grant projects shed light on sea-level rise, ocean acidification, the effect of melting glaciers on kelp beds, and much, much else.
First off, there’s a connection with climate change, where Team Trump denies even the most basic mechanisms. But more importantly, Sea Grant funds science—and Donald Trump hates science.
It’s not just NOAA and the EPA that are coming in for destruction under Trump.
Sea Grant's managers say Trump's proposal underscores the administration's disrespect for science. They suspect similar cuts will come to programs at the Department of the Interior, the US Geological Survey, and the US Forest Service — at a cost to scientific understanding.
Of course, it may not be that Trump is really against science. He’s just against science in the public interest. It’s fine for people to study the mineral resources of the United States, like the US Geologic Survey, but that information should be kept to those who deserve it—maybe a bonus for Mar-a-lago membership—not shared with the public. Donald Trump absolutely believes that knowledge is power. That’s why he doesn’t want the average American to have any.
After all, if you have programs out there like Sea Grant helping people study water quality and looking at problems on the coast … how are you ever going to talk them into buying nonexistent condos on Sewer Beach?
Trump wants to take the money from Sea Grant and apply it to his massive military build up, even though the research grants would cover a bit over one tenth of one percent of the money Trump has promised to waste on ships and planes that no one (except military contractors) wants or needs.
How much would destroying this program generate?
An analysis of 57 examples from the program found the $270 million the government spent on Sea Grant during its first 14 years yielded $227 million in economic benefits each year.
So … negative three billion dollars. Sure. That sounds like a good step.