The war on the environment

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A team of Guardian reporters in 11 countries has found: Last year, the equivalent of 68,000 shipping containers of American plastic recycling were exported from the US to developing countries that mismanage more than 70% of their own plastic waste. The newest hotspots for handling US plastic recycling are some of the world’s poorest countries, including Bangladesh, Laos, Ethiopia and Senegal, offering cheap labor and limited environmental regulation. In some places, like Turkey, a surge in foreign waste shipments is disrupting efforts to handle locally generated plastics. With these nations overwhelmed, thousands of tons of waste plastic are stranded at home in the US, as we reveal in our story later this week.

Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America's dirty secret | US news | The Guardian

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Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of President Donald Trump’s speech yesterday was that it happened at all. It was billed as a celebration of Trump’s environmental leadership. Three senators and six Cabinet-level leaders—powerful people whose scarcest resource is their time—watched the president speak for close to an hour. During that period, Trump did not announce a new green program, nor did he reverse any of his 83 environmental rollbacks. He alluded to the climate only once, when he criticized the Paris Agreement, and he never actually said the phrase climate change, nor did he acknowledge that Earth is warming.

Axios reported that the White House was previewing Trump’s reelection message, that it sought to portray him “as pragmatic … to appeal to suburban women.” According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this past weekend—a poll that found Trump’s approval rating at 44 percent, one of its highest readings ever—the public overwhelmingly disapproves of the president’s climate policy. Sixty-two percent of Americans dislike Trump’s climate record, a worse reading than he earns on immigration, gun violence, or health care..

Trump then talked up alternative energy. “I’m a big believer in solar energy,” he said. That makes sense as a pitch: Solar energy is overwhelmingly popular among Americans of all parties. But he is doing very little to help its cause. The solar-power industry has lost roughly 18,000 jobs under the Trump administration, according to its trade group. The group says that most of that hemorrhage is due to the president’s tariffs. (The coal industry has gained 2,000 jobs in the same time.) Trump also didn’t mention wind energy during his speech. It’s just as popular as solar energy, but in April the president alleged it causes cancer. (It doesn’t.)

Except yesterday the White House went further. “Today we have the cleanest air on record,” said Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, during the event. “Pollution is on the decline, and our focus is to accelerate its decline, particularly in the most at-risk communities.” 

“Under your administration,” he added, addressing Trump, “emissions of all the criteria air pollutants have continued to decline.” The problem is that neither of those claims is true. Six types of dangerous air pollutants qualify as “criteria” pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and all are toxic in some form to human health. At least three of them—ozone, nitrous oxide, and particulate matter—are more prevalent now than they were in 2016, before Trump took office, according to EPA data released this week.

The number of “unhealthy-air days” across the country is also increasing. An unhealthy-air day is a day when ozone or particulate matter poses a threat to at least some of the population, such as children, the elderly, or people with lung conditions. Particulate matter is one of the deadliest environmental toxins, and it still kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. Across 35 major American cities, there were nearly 14 percent more of these days in 2018 (799) than in 2016 (702), according to the EPA. The record for the fewest-ever number of unhealthy-air days was set in 2014, during the Obama administration, when there were only 598.

Under Trump, U.S. Doesn’t Have ‘Cleanest Air on Record’ - The Atlantic

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In a move environmentalists denounced as yet another case of the Trump administration putting industry profits over public health, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday that it will not ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage in children. “By allowing chlorpyrifos to stay in our fruits and vegetables, Trump’s EPA is breaking the law and neglecting the overwhelming scientific evidence that this pesticide harms children’s brains,” Patti Goldman, attorney with Earthjustice said in a statement. “It is a tragedy that this administration sides with corporations instead of children’s health.” 

EPA chief Andrew Wheeler’s decision to reject a petition by environmental groups calling for a ban on the neurotoxic chemical ignores the assessments of his agency’s own scientists, said Tiffany Finck-Haynes, pesticides and pollinators program manager for Friends of the Earth.

‘A total disgrace’: Outrage as Trump EPA says it won’t ban pesticide linked to brain damage in children – Alternet.org

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday announced it would roll back regulations on how coal-fired power plants dispose of waste laden with arsenic, lead and mercury. The proposal from the Trump administration weakens an Obama-era rule dealing with the residue from burning coal, known as coal ash, which is often mixed in water and stored in giant pits that could leech into local waterways. The 2015 Obama administration rule required power plants to invest in wastewater treatment technology -- measures they estimated would stop some 1.4 billion pounds of coal ash from entering rivers and streams. It also assumed many companies would voluntarily install additional pollution controls.   The proposal was spurred by a court decision ordering EPA to overhaul the unlined ponds.

EPA rolls back rule on waste from coal-fired power plants | TheHill

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Ultra-cheap shale gas from the decade-long US fracking boom continued to fuel a surge of billion-dollar investments in new cracking plants that separate ethane from gas to produce ethylene, the building block of most plastic. Since 2010 the petrochemical industry has invested about $200bn, and with $100bn more planned to be spent, plastic production is expected to grow 40% by 2030..

The plastic polluters won 2019 – and we're running out of time to stop them | Environment | The Guardian

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The contamination of US drinking water with manmade “forever chemicals” is far worse than previously estimated with some of the highest levels found in Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans, said a report on Wednesday by an environmental watchdog group. The chemicals, resistant to breaking down in the environment, are known as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Some have been linked to cancers, liver damage, low birth weight and other health problems. The findings here by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) show the group’s previous estimate in 2018, based on unpublished US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, that 110 million Americans may be contaminated with PFAS, could be far too low. “It’s nearly impossible to avoid contaminated drinking water from these chemicals,” said David Andrews, a senior scientist at EWG and co-author of the report.

US drinking water contamination with ‘forever chemicals’ far worse than scientists thought | Environment | The Guardian

The Trump administration has completed its rollback of environmental protections for streams, wetland and other bodies of water, a process that has stripped pollution safeguards from drinking water sources used by around a third of all Americans. Clean water protections strengthened under the Obama administration have long been targeted by Donald Trump, who has called it a “very destructive and horrible rule”. Trump administration to strip pollution protections, harming vital wildlife Read more Trump has been backed by ranchers, farming groups and golf course operators, who claim the so-called “Water of the United States” (Wotus) rule impinged upon landowners’ rights.

Trump administration strips pollution safeguards from drinking water sources | Environment | The Guardian

• Figure that, as we realize the pollution from PFAS is far more widespread than previously known the Trump government rolls back more protection measures that safeguard drinking water supplies..
  
• And then there is this:
  

Political appointees at the interior department have sought to play up climate pollution from California wildfires while downplaying emissions from fossil fuels as a way of promoting more logging in the nation’s forests, internal emails obtained by the Guardian reveal. The messaging plan was crafted in support of Donald Trump’s pro-industry arguments for harvesting more timber in California, which he says would thin forests and prevent fires – a point experts refute. The emails show officials seeking to estimate the carbon emissions from devastating 2018 fires in California so they could compare them to the carbon footprint of the state’s electricity sector and then publish statements encouraging cutting down trees.

‘Blatant manipulation’: Trump administration exploited wildfire science to promote logging | Environment | The Guardian

• Remember Trump arguing the California wildfires are caused by insufficient forest management? At first people thought this is just a ploy to deflect from climate change. Well, it's that but it turns out to also be an industry talking point to increase logging..
  

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It may be hard to remember these days, but the nation that led the world on to the stage of modern environmental protection was the United States. Starting in the early 70s, the US Congress enacted bold bipartisan laws to protect America’s wildlife, air and water. America’s skies cleared. Waterfronts across the nation went from blighted dumping grounds into vital civic hearts. And, in this journey from smog to light, America’s economy thrived. Our environment improved even as our economy grew. Both Republican and Democratic administrations upheld this commitment to a clean environment, and it endured for decades.

Following the 2016 election, polluting-industry veterans commandeered the country’s environmental agencies with one central aim: make pollution free again. The assaults have been fast, furious and many. But the latest one stands out above, or below, the others. Administration officials have now targeted the Clean Water Act, perhaps the most fundamental environmental law ever enacted by the US Congress.

The law’s main mechanism is simple: before discharging waste into the nation’s waters, polluters must first try to clean it up. So how did the former lobbyists running the agencies sabotage the act? By radically shrinking it. By its terms, the act only protects waters “of the United States”. But according to this administration, waters “of” the United States does not mean waters in the United States. In their view, the Clean Water Act only applies to a subset of waters, and the rest are unprotected.

The scope of the contraction is staggering. In some states out west, 80% of stream miles would lose their protection. Drinking water sources for millions of Americans would be at risk from pollution. The administration’s redefinition would leave millions of acres open for destruction – wetlands that buffer communities from storms, serve as homes for wildlife and nurseries for fish and shellfish, and act as natural water filters.

This is the single largest loss of clean water protections that America has ever seen. And the timing couldn’t be worse. From lead contamination in drinking water to the proliferating threat of toxic industrial chemicals, new threats to water quality are emerging daily. Science should drive the response to these threats. In this administration, however, scientists are not in the driver’s seat. They’re not even in the vehicle. They have been exiled far away. Ideology is at the wheel instead.

The Clean Water Act was a staggering bipartisan achievement. Now Trump is gutting it | Blan Holman | Opinion | The Guardian

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Trump’s EPA administrator wants to redraw our nation’s mercury standard to benefit coal-fired power plants that belch out nearly half the nation’s mercury emissions. But the agency’s Science Advisory Board is balking.The board, headed by Trump administration appointee Michael Honeycutt who previously opposed tougher mercury standards, told the EPA it needed to look again at how much mercury people get from fish and the harm from mercury.

“EPA should instigate a new risk assessment,” the board wrote. Under former President Barack Obama, the EPA only looked at IQ losses in children born to mothers who ate freshwater fish caught by amateur anglers from lakes where the EPA had information on fish tissue. This excluded most of the fish eaten in our country, much of it imported or fish from the ocean. “It’s absolutely incorrect,” said Elsie Sunderland, a professor of environmental science and engineering at Harvard.

The Trump EPA packed the Science Advisory Board with industry-friendly appointees like air pollution researcher Robert Phalen who said air can be “a little too clean” for children’s health and consultant Brant Ulsh who claims radiation at low doses may not be dangerous. The mercury report mentioned a discredited study by consultant and board member Tony Cox that claimed soot in the air can be beneficial.

But even this tainted board couldn’t stomach what the Trump EPA wants to do to our planet. The board also questioned a proposed rule that would limit which wetlands and waterways are protected by the Clean Water Act and the rollback of clean car standards.

Mercury exposure at its worst can mimic cerebral palsy. When airborne mercury settles on water or land that’s often damp, microbes convert it to methylmercury which is highly toxic and becomes more concentrated as it moves up food chains to people and predators. Mercury raises the risk of diabetes and causes cardiovascular problems for adults, including higher chances of a fatal heart attack. Even how birds sing is affected. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler twisted the math for a proposed federal rule to knock out the legal justifications for limiting mercury emissions, claiming that “the only health benefit” to reducing mercury emissions “that the EPA could quantify and monetize” was children’s IQ loss.

In March 2017, coal magnate Robert Murray, who donated $300,000 to Trump’s inauguration, gave the Energy Department a wish list that included rescinding or revising the mercury standard, which Murray Energy had sued to block. Wheeler is a former lobbyist and Murray Energy was his best-paying client. Murray Energy, once the largest privately held coal company in the country, filed for bankruptcy in October. At least seven coal companies filed for bankruptcy in 2019. EPA is required by law to base decisions on the “best available science.”

The Obama restrictions on mercury have worked. Mercury emissions from U.S. power plants plunged by 65% from 2015 to 2017. The standards prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths a year, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks, according to EPA estimates. The Trump EPA also wants to quash rules on sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants which cause acid rain.

Trump’s EPA is about to give a massive gift to the coal industry – Alternet.org

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday released its newest definition for ambient air in a move critics say will ease burdens on polluting industries. On its surface, the guidance deals less directly with air quality than it does with fencing. Though seemingly unrelated, the Clean Air Act doesn’t apply to spaces where the public has been denied access--forcing polluting industries to surround their property with fencing. The guidance posted Tuesday would allow industries to use other “non-physical barriers” to enclose those spaces, like no trespassing signs or even patrol by drones -- something air quality experts say exempts industries from installing pollution controls.

Latest EPA guidance weakens air protections in favor of industry, critics say | TheHill

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The White House announced Tuesday that President Trump would likely veto legislation designed to manage a class of cancer-linked chemicals leaching into the water supply. The chemicals, known by the abbreviation PFAS, are used in a variety of nonstick products such as raincoats, cookware and packaging and have been found in nearly every state in the country. They are considered “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment and in the human body, with 99 percent of those tested having PFAS traces in their body. After failing to include a measure to broadly regulate PFAS in the annual defense policy bill late last year, House lawmakers introduced sweeping legislation in November that would force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set a drinking water standard for PFAS. The EPA said it would determine whether to regulate PFAS by the end of 2019, a self-imposed deadline the agency missed.

Trump officials voice opposition to 'forever chemical' bill | TheHill