The Biden-Harris administration must act quickly to reverse and repair Trump’s environmental destruction. Here’s how to do it.
By Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The period of the 45th presidency will go down as dark
days for the United States — not just for the violent insurgency and
impeachment that capped off Donald Trump’s four years in office, but for every
regressive action that came before.
It’s been said that Trump
was the worst environmental
president in history, and that’s easy to see from his administration’s
record. They rolled back decades of environmental progress by slashing
protective regulations, strangled the agencies tasked with enforcing the
regulations that remained, pushed corporate agendas damaging to wildlife, human
health and the climate, and stoked the flames of right-wing extremists — including
people whose radical agendas often attack public-land protections or climate
science.
That barely covers it all,
of course. It would take an entire book — a whole library — to fully convey the
environmental damage done under Trump.
And now it’s up to a new
administration — and the work of a lot of people on top of it — to undo the
damage and hopefully make up for four lost years of potential progress.
President Joe Biden and
Vice President Kamala Harris, together with the Democratic majorities in the House
and Senate, have a tough task ahead of them.
Make that many tough tasks. They’ll need to rebuild the ranks of government workforces while reinforcing the trust in government and the trust in America on the world stage.
They’ll need to pass and restore regulations that don’t just return us to the status quo but radically improve on it — taking the world forward at a time when the effects of climate change and the extinction crisis continue to worsen. 2020 tied for the hottest year on record, and Trump added fewer species to the Endangered Species Act than any other president while slashing protections for those already on the list.
They’ll need to address environmental justice at a
time when white supremacy is at its most vocal point in decades and firmly
entrenched in some areas of government. They’ll need to resist the usual
corporate influence that could slow things down along the way.
And they’ll need to do it
all while helping the country stabilize and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic
and Trump’s botched response to the crisis, not to mention the continued threat
from seditious domestic terrorists.
That’s a lot on one plate,
but they’re already off to a good start. Biden and Harris ran on a strong
climate platform and have assembled an experienced climate team. Neither the
platform nor the team is perfect — progressives think they can do much better —
but they’re light years ahead of anything we saw under the previous
administration.
And of course, now that
the Democrats have won the Senate, Biden’s cabinet picks are more likely to be
confirmed and the country will no longer face the obstruction ever-present
under the majority leadership of Mitch McConnell.
But at the same time,
Republicans have risen to power in cities and state legislatures around the
country, and many of them are still fueled by MAGA
Trumpism and unhinged conspiracy theories. The right-wing media,
meanwhile, continue to shape and mold millions with their unique brand of
misinformation and discord. Both trends will present a barrier to progress at
every level.
So what’s the agenda for
moving forward under the Biden-Harris administration? Below, you’ll find a
series of articles and expert commentaries from The
Revelator’s archives addressing key steps the incoming team can take to
restore the EPA, protect key species, address the COVID-19 pandemic in a just
and climate-focused manner, and more.
We’ll continue to add to
these roadmaps as the administration gets its footing, and we invite any
insiders and experts to contribute their own voices.
Reform the Bureau of Land Management: Biden Must
Succeed Where Obama Failed
For a Path Forward on Climate, Let’s Learn From
the Original New Deal
Gray Wolf Recovery and Survival Require
Immediate Action by the Biden Administration
Biden Can Restore the EPA, But It Will Require
Steadfast Effort
How Biden Can Do More Than Just Restore Trump’s
Environmental Rollbacks
Biden-Harris Climate Plan: ‘Not Trump’ Is Not
Enough
Biden Must Take a Leadership Role Against
Wildlife Crime
Multisolving Our Way to COVID-19 Economic
Recovery
Biden Can Leverage Larger Trends to Make Climate
Progress
And here’s a report from our parent
organization, the Center for Biological Diversity:
50 Critical Environmental
Reforms President Biden Can Enact Without Congress
John R. Platt http://twitter.com/johnrplatthttp://johnrplatt.com https://www.instagram.com/johnrplatt