Biden Climate Watch: Fixing Trump's Environmental Damage

In its four years, the Trump administration managed to make a hash out of decades of efforts to slow climate change. Regulation rollbacks — more than 100 by The New York Times’ count — have made it easier for the automobile, coal, gas, oil, and sewage treatment industries to pollute unfettered and without consequence. The annihilation of pro-environment governmental frameworks has erased animal and plant habitat protections, and cleared the way for industrial fishing to deplete our oceans. It is now easier to pollute waterways, and to use toxic chemicals.

The list of rollbacks reads like a parody, it is so comprehensively destructive to our planet.

All of us, but especially people (often of color) in poor communities — where pollutive industrial plants mainly operate and complaints go ignored — are now at greater risk of illness and death, whether through plain-old pollution or the ongoing developments of climate change.

But now we have President Biden, who some are calling the first “climate president.” Still, not everyone is thrilled with Biden’s record on the environment, and wonder whether his term will manage to repair the damage done under Trump.

Here at WMC Climate, we will be watching closely how things unfold with Biden’s proposed actions on the climate crisis, and how they affect the most vulnerable communities, whether in the United States or abroad. As part of that watch, we’ll also be looking at the kind of people Biden nominates for critical positions that affect the crisis, hopefully correcting the historical dearth of government representation by the people most affected by climate change (women, people of color, indigenous communities, the poor). Just today, the Senate confirmed former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, who has long advocated for zero-emissions vehicles, to head the Energy Department.

Sometimes, we’ll also write about fixes under the new administration that are so far-reaching, it seems that everyone will benefit. On Feb. 2, one of those sweeping changes came to fruition, reversing a dangerous anti-science decision made while Trump was in office.

Just four weeks after the Trump Administration snuck in a last-minute rule that strictly limited what kind of scientific studies the Environmental Protection Agency can use toward determining policy, a federal judge tossed it out.

The judge, in Montana, vacated the so-called “secret science” rule, as requested by the Biden administration. The move is a win for the environment, scientists and public health researchers say.

“Today’s decision is great news for EPA’s ability to use rigorous, lifesaving science to protect all Americans from dangerous pollution and toxic chemicals,” said a statement from Ben Levitan, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, which was a co-plaintiff in the case.

The Trump administration painted the rule as necessary to protect the private medical information of participants in public health studies. It would have forced the EPA to downplay or dismiss studies with such private information altogether. But the justification was only meant to further the administration’s anti-science stance — which supported wealthy polluting industries, advocates say.

The "secret science" rule was "based on a conspiracy theory, which is that EPA practices secret science,” said Thomas Sinks, who previously led the Office of the Science Advisor at the EPA and oversaw its rules on research involving human subjects. Sinks told The Washington Post in January that “there’s no evidence EPA practices secret science. I’m unaware of an example where EPA hasn’t clearly stated what science it is using in its rule-making.”

A lot of us are tired of conspiracy theories in general after four years of Trump, and, after the hottest year on record, a return to science can only benefit us all.

Let’s cross our fingers and hope the next four years will bring back — and further — protection of our water, land, animals, and people. We’ll be watching.