“The heavy stuff’s not gonna come down for quite a
while.”
In one of my all-time
favorite movies, Caddyshack, Bill Murray is caddying for
Bishop Pickering, cleric and member in good standing of the Bushwood Country
Club.
In lightning and a
deluge of rain, Murray urges the Bishop to play on: "I think the heavy stuff's not gonna come
down for quite a while."
That pretty much sums up
how I feel about the Trump Administration's purge of environmental regulation.
It may look like the deluge has already started, but I'd advise taking shelter
for the much worse impacts that could be on the way.
Recently, former coal industry lobbyist Andrew Wheeler carried out a potentially lifesaving feat for his ex-clients by reversing Obama-era rules designed to wean the U.S. off coal.
Wheeler's new rule would defer many decisions now made federally to individual states. This trumps Wheeler's previous-week highlight, in which he said that taming the plastic waste crisis, not climate change, was the EPA's greatest international priority.
A few months earlier,
Wheeler said safe drinking water was a much bigger priority than climate
change.
Also, well underway are
efforts to cancel Obama-era targets for car and truck fuel efficiency. Get
this: The auto industry recently pleaded with the White House to retain the more
ambitious fuel efficiency standards – a cornerstone of the plan to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
Translation: While we're growing accustomed to any number of industries having their way, the Administration's anti-regulatory Jihadists have more pull over auto industry regs than the auto industry has.
Translation: While we're growing accustomed to any number of industries having their way, the Administration's anti-regulatory Jihadists have more pull over auto industry regs than the auto industry has.
Wheeler is also
advancing efforts started by his scandal-plagued predecessor, Scott Pruitt, to
tone down the use of EPA's Science Advisory Board in establishing new pollution
regulations.
Inside Climate News reported earlier this month that SAB meetings, once convened six to eight times annually, dwindled to one meeting in the past year.
Inside Climate News reported earlier this month that SAB meetings, once convened six to eight times annually, dwindled to one meeting in the past year.
The Administration is
expected to soon take a run at NEPA, an obscure but critical half-century old
statute. The National Environmental Policy Act requires that an environmental impact
assessment be prepared for every major development project.
Had enough? The
Endangered Species Act faces a Trump makeover, soon. Budgets and morale at EPA, Interior, NOAA and other agencies are racing
each out the door, with institutional knowledge swirling the drain.
Fringe scientists, like climate denier William Happer, have a seat at the Trump table.
Fringe scientists, like climate denier William Happer, have a seat at the Trump table.
Superfund cleanups,
never a roaring success, are slowing. And like Wheeler, Interior Secretary
David Bernhardt is an ex-fossil lobbyist with a quiet insider's style.
So amid the deluges, the
weather report isn't getting any brighter any time soon. The heavy stuff could
be in our future.