It seems Donald Trump will do anything to get his way. As his ongoing attempts to override California’s car emission protections draw derision, Trump has set his sights on northern California. After a visit to the Golden State last week, Trump declared that San Francisco is allowing needles and other waste from homeless encampments to drain into the ocean and cause water pollution; predictably, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler is still doing Trump's bidding.
On Thursday, Wheeler sent a letter to Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom, “expressing concern” that California is failing to enforce the Clean Water Act—as if Trump gives a flip about the environment. According to a compilation from the New York Times, from his inauguration to Sept.12, Trump has rolled back 85 environmental protections. Yes, 85 rollbacks.
According to Wheeler’s letter, "California is responsible for implementing appropriate municipal storm water management and waste treatment requirements as part of its assumed federal program.” He added that “the state is failing to properly implement these programs."
Trump was less formal, saying. "If these Democrat liberal politicians don't straighten it out, the federal government will have to come in. We're not going to lose cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and others that are great cities. We're not going to allow that to happen to our cities." Additionally, he claimed the homeless population was scaring away immigrants from moving to California to live. Within a week, by the way, Trump slashed the number of refugee immigrants who are allowed to enter the country—by 40%.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed fired back at Trump.
"I'm sick of this president taking swipes at our city for no reason other than politics," Breed said. "As I've said before, there are no needles washing out to the Bay or ocean from our sewer system, and there is no relationship between homelessness and water quality in San Francisco."
The EPA letter also states San Francisco’s violations put hundreds of thousands of residents at risk and asked Gov. Newsom what he intends to do about it. They added that they needed an answer within 30 days, or the federal government would step in and millions of federal funds and grants could be withheld.
Like Mayor Breed, Gov. Newsom slammed Trump’s abuse of power.
"The president is abusing the powers of the presidency and weaponizing government to attack his political opponents. This is not about clean air, clean water or helping our state with homelessness," said Nathan Click, spokesman for Newsom. "This is political retribution against California, plain and simple."
Northern Californians are just not buying Trump’s newfound concern with what is an undeniable crisis. David Lewis, homeless advocate and executive director of the environmental group Save The Bay, dismissed Trump’s actions as being blatantly “political.‘’ "The way to reduce the impacts from homeless encampments is to reduce homelessness," he said.
Lewis nails it, but will Trump and his administration listen? With virtually three years of corruption under their belts, the answer would most definitely, be no.
Trump, of course, has an agenda and expects to win everything at any cost. His minions and accomplices follow along like leeches. May they follow him right down the road into their own indictments, convictions and penalties of law—including prison.