Dino Grandoni writes in the Washington Post that the Trump administration is rushing through actions that will be difficult for the Biden administration to reverse. One of them involves formerly protected wilderness in Alaska.
President Trump refuses to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 election. But his outgoing environmental deputies are still hurrying to complete more than a dozen agency actions in expectation of hitting the exits.
With just two months until Joe Biden becomes president, Trump appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency and elsewhere are up against the clock to lock in rules changes. The last-minute efforts could affect everything from vast tracts of remote Arctic wilderness and air quality nationwide to the everyday showers and clothes dryers in people’s homes.
Biden has promised to undo many of the regulatory rollbacks completed over the past fours years. But some of the Trump administration’s under-the-wire rules could end up hampering the Biden administration from aggressively tackling climate change and other issues right out of the gate.
“The last gasps of the administration,” said David J. Hayes, executive director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at the New York University School of Law, “have the potential to either be a speed bump or a potential roadblock for the new administration coming in.” His group has launched the “Midnight Watch Project” to track the end-of-term efforts.
One of the first of the last-minute moves since Election Day is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Interior Department is set this week to ask oil and gas companies to choose where they want to drill in the untouched Alaskan wilderness. Should the Trump administration sell drilling rights within the refuge before Jan. 20, it may be very hard for Biden’s team to take back those leases.
In 2017, Republicans in Congress opened nearly 1.6 million acres of caribou and polar bear habitat there to potential petroleum extraction. But it has taken until this year for the department to be ready to hold a sale on drilling rights.
 Caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP) |
Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, told my colleague Juliet Eilperin that Trump’s team is “under a tight timeline.” But he added that the department is on legally solid footing: “Our view is that Congress has acted.”
Yet despite the 2017 law mandating a lease sale, Biden has promised to oppose drilling in the refuge, calling it “a big disaster to do that.”
When it’s all said and done, the Trump administration may finish a dozen significant actions before Biden’s inauguration.
In addition to potentially leasing within the Arctic refuge, officials aim to complete a plan to open up another vast area in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to drilling and to auction off extraction rights on more than 4,100 acres in central California on Dec. 10.
Interior may also formalize a more narrow definition of habitat for endangered species before Jan. 20. It could also further water down prohibitions on the incidental killing of migratory birds — a change long sought by some oil companies whose uncovered oil waste pits attract waterfowl.
At the Energy Department, officials may exempt some clothes washers and dryers from energy-efficiency requirements and change the definition of a showerhead to allow more water to flow before Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris take office.
This last action reflects Trump’s pet peeve that his showerhead does not produce enough water when he shampoos his hair.
Every time I hear about Trump doing something as president that will benefit some individual and/or corporation’s net worth and profits, I wonder if DT is getting a kick back to a numbered offshore account.
A reasonable question. There can be now doubt about the power of lobbies in shaping many of Trump’s Executive Orders. The lobby experts know exactly how to draft the model legislation they prefer, operating just like ALEC–the American Legislative Exchange Council. The draft materials are easily formatted to fit the requirements of an Executive Order. In addition, Trump’s appointments often come from the ranks of lobbies so there is in-house expertise in shaping these EOs.
Trump is in a hurry to do his last bit to destroy the environment. He doesn’t care about the planet’s further destruction…only about making more money for some corporation. He might even be making more money for himself. That seems to be the only thing that motivates him….GREED.
Looks like Republicans getting COVID-19 is actually helping this country. [Keep not wearing masks. Make America Great Again.]
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The Hill:
Trump’s controversial Fed nominee stalled after Senate setback
Judy Shelton’s Federal Reserve Board nomination failed to advance on Tuesday after coronavirus-related quarantines sidelined some Republican senators and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris returned to the upper chamber to provide a crucial “no” vote.
Senators voted 48-49 to end debate on Shelton’s nomination, falling short of the simple majority needed to advance it.
The setback for Judy Shelton is good news. She is a rightwing extremist who wanted to return to the gold standard.
See also “Biden’s First Climate Appointment Is A Fossil Fuel Industry Ally” by David Sirota.
Not good news.
This is a shocking and disgusting appointment. Like having a representative of John King, Jr.’s organization and one of the developers of SBAC and edTPA on the education transition team.
Why not just name him since you are talking about the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, US Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA)
And Cedric Richmond is appointed to lead the White House Office of Public Engagement. He’s not exactly running the EPA.
“The Biden transition team called Richmond a “leader in helping to enact landmark criminal justice reform,” and ensuring that his constituents were “prepared for emergencies and natural disasters” through his oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
This headline is misleading. I was expecting some corporate lackey, not the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus to run the office that ALSO deals with criminal justice!
I absolutely believe in holding Biden’s feet to the fire, but really, is THIS a battle to fight?
Should progressives be demanding that the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus be forced out from running the Office of Public Engagement because of his position on climate change?
Since when is the “Office of Public Engagement” the most important climate change office? Really?
^^And I would hardly call the appointment of US Rep. Cedric Richmond to run the White House Office of Public Engagement “Biden’s first climate appointment”. That seems so misleading. Technically the chief of staff would be a climate appointment, too! And AOC approved of that appointment.
I’ll reserve judgment on this for now. Any elected representative from Louisiana, especially from the southern part of the state, has to represent oil and gas interests because they are among the biggest employers in the state. Richmond did serve as the campaign’s co-chair and he does know a thing or two about environmental racism. He represents the people of the notorious Cancer Alley (also known as the cancer corridor) between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, which, because of the closeness of chemical plants to poor residential areas, has among the highest rates of cancer incidence in the nation (and the world). He also knows something about the severe coastal erosion that will likely make New Orleans and much of southern Louisiana disappear within this century unless strong environmental measures are taken. He’s not ideal for the post chosen, but he may well surprise us for the better.
Remember that Chester A. Arthur signed the Pendleton Act to create the American civil service system. No one would have expected a former Collector of the Port of New York, who led the cronyism of Tammany Hall and was the highest paid government employee of his time–making significantly more than the US presdent–to do so.
GregB,
The thing is that Cedric Richmond isn’t running an office that deals with climate change. He’s running an office that deals with public engagement! It deals with organizations like the NAACP and organizations fighting for criminal justice reform and organizations fighting for all sorts of things. Yes it includes organizations concerned with climate change, but calling Richmond a “climate appointment” really stretches the definition.
By that definition, Richmond is also an “education” appointment. And he’s also a “criminal justice reform” appointment.
All of the issues you cite are magnified greatly in New Orleans. Like I wrote, I’ll reserve judgment for now. In addition to the issues I cite above, what lessons has he learned about the New Orleans education debacle? What lessons has he learned from a criminal justice system gone awry? What lessons has he learned about environmental destruction and the long-term folly of fossil fuels? Will he change now that he doesn’t have to spend more than half his time raising funds? What lessons has he learned from the so-called confederacy monument issues that have so riled his city and state? What will his advice and counsel to President Biden be? Will he have access or is he just window dressing? Time will tell.
I agree, time will tell. I just thought it seemed premature for this to be viewed as Biden completely abandoning any concern for climate change since this appointment really isn’t a “climate” appointment. I want to know who Biden is appointing to make climate policy, and that’s not the guy who leads the Office of Public Engagement.
The vandal is not finished with his vandalizing.
Well, by all means, the most important consideration is the amount of water available from a showerhead to fall upon the sainted head of Glorious Leader Who Shines More Orange than the Sun. Much more important than climate change or loss of wildlife habitat.
NB: Since 1975, the average vertebrate species population in the wild has declined, in raw numbers, by 68 percent.
More than two-thirds. Gone. In 45 years.
Here’s what MAGA means: Moscow’s Agent Governing America.
Vlad’s Agent Orange. Toxic. Deadly. Environmentally destructive.
This is the political equivalent of rats fleeing the ship while trying to ensure a welcoming destination, a right of passage that happens whenever administrations change from one party to another, one that Republicans have mastered much more effectively than Democrats. It’s also exacerbated by the broken appropriations process that ensures annual federal spending bills will be Christmas trees, vehicles to add special interest items that no one will notice until the tree is decorated and can’t be changed. Rather than have shadow cabinets as parliamentary systems do, they create programs which will allow them to ensconce themselves in cushy law firms and lobbying outfits to make money off the legislation they snuck in just before they hit the exits.
There will be a number of actions like this in the coming days and weeks. I just got a notice that Sen. Thom Tillis is reviving a bill to patent human genes to overturn a unanimous Supreme Court decision. It’s gonna get ugly.
Squeezing every penny he can out of this country before the hammer drops. It guess it is still better than invading Iran, which it was reported, he considered.
Edit:
consideredstill desperately wants to do to create more chaos for incoming administration.