[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 67 (Wednesday, April 25, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2429-S2431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EARTH DAY 2018
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last Sunday, April 22, marked the 49th
Earth Day. Given the Trump administration's reckless assault on the
environment, it is frightening to think where we might be on the 50th
Earth Day.
President Trump hasn't built that ``big, beautiful'' wall he
promised. More than a year into his term, he still hasn't filled dozens
of critical posts, from Cabinet Secretaries to ambassadors.
Looking at what hasn't been done, a reasonable person might assume
that this President still hasn't learned how to make government work.
That might be true in many areas, but when it comes to the environment,
it is dead wrong.
From day one of his administration, President Trump has used budget
cuts, executive orders, and other administrative and regulatory tools
to push a concerted rollback of environmental protections. President
Trump has repealed or frozen some 850 rules and regulations, many of
which have a direct impact on the environment.
He has signaled his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris
climate accord. America is the largest emitter of carbon gases, and we
are the only nation on Earth that is not part of the global effort to
save the planet from climate chaos and catastrophe.
Under this President, we have ceded global leadership on the climate
to other nations, especially to China. Not only is that shameful, it is
bad business. Some of the best-paying jobs of the 21st century will be
in renewable energy industries. How are we going to create those jobs
and industries in America with a President and administration that
refuse to admit even the existence of climate change?
Since Earth Day last year, the U.S. has suffered some of the
deadliest and costliest disasters in our history. Last August,
Hurricane Irma battered the southern U.S., especially south Florida. It
was followed quickly by Hurricane Harvey, which caused an estimated
$200 billion in damage and pummeled Houston. In September, Hurricane
Maria caused the worst natural disaster on record in Puerto Rico.
Nearly 8 months later, most of the island is still without electricity.
After the hurricanes came the wildfires, including some of the worst
wildfires in California's history.
Scientists warn that without significant reductions in carbon
emissions, climate chaos will become more frequent, more deadly and
more expensive.
What is FEMA's response? Strategic plans drawn up by FEMA during both
the Obama and George W. Bush administrations acknowledged climate
change as a serious threat, right up there with terrorist attacks.
Under this President, FEMA has dropped any mention of climate change
from its strategic plan. The reality we dare not deny has become the
crisis whose name the Agency dare not utter.
Last year and again this year, President Trump has sent Congress
budget plans that would gut the Department of Interior and the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Scott Pruitt, the President's choice to run EPA, is an ethical
nightmare, but he is a polluter's dream. He has vowed to withdraw the
Clean Power Plan, a plan to cut emissions from the U.S. power sector by
32 percent from 2005 by 2030. Administrator Pruitt has signaled that he
wants to roll back modest new fuel efficiency standards for cars and
light-duty trucks--standards that would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions significantly. The EPA under Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt
has suspended the ``waters of the United States'' rule, designed to
reduce pollution in 60 percent of the Nation's lakes, rivers, and
streams.
EPA is not the only member of the Trump Environmental Wrecking Crew.
Today, 94 percent of the outer continental shelf in the Pacific,
Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans is off limits from oil and gas exploration.
The Department of the Interior is proposing to open 90 percent of the
outer continental shelf for future oil and gas drilling. On top of
this, this administration has weakened safety requirements that prevent
oil spills.
Interior's Bureau of Land Management is also selling off thousands of
federally owned parcels of land for oil and gas development. Among the
national treasures up for sale are two national monuments in Utah: the
Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, home to some of the richest
and most important archeological finds in our Nation.
Interior Secretary Zinke had a special flag designed for himself and
ordered that it be flown whenever he was in the Department
headquarters. It would be more fitting if he flew the white flag of
surrender because that is what this administration is doing.
They are surrendering America's global leadership in the efforts to
save this planet from climate catastrophe, and they are surrendering
decades of important and lifesaving progress we have made since the
first Earth Day in safeguarding our environment, preserving our natural
treasures, and protecting the health and safety of the American people.
They are undoing decades of bipartisan agreements that balanced
science
[[Page S2430]]
and the public good with the interests of States, localities,
landowners, business, and conservationists.
This past weekend, on the eve of Earth Day, the New York Times
published an oped entitled, ``America Before Earth Day: Smog and
Disasters Spurred the Laws Trump Wants to Undo.'' The article recounts
five devastating ecological disasters that shook Americans deeply in
late 1960s and the 1970s and led to the creation of major environmental
laws that have saved millions of lives and reversed horrendous
environmental damage.
The accidents include the Cuyahoga River burning in 1969, which
helped spur passage of the Clean Air Act, and the toxic poisoning of
Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY--a catalyst for the creation in 1980 of
a superfund that would make oil and chemical companies pay for the
pollution they cause and not walk away from the devastation and stick
taxpayers with the tab.
The Trump administration is working to dismantle not just to these
major environmental laws and abdicate America's role as a global leader
on environmental protection, it is reneging on a bipartisan tradition
on conservation and preservation of America's public lands that goes
back more than a century, to a proud Republican President by the name
of Teddy Roosevelt.
I ask unanimous consent that that full New York Times op-ed be
printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
Fortunately, American businesses and scientists, State and local
governments, and the American people themselves refuse to wave the
white flag. They refuse to sell America's clean air and clean water and
the health of the American people to the highest bidder.
They are working in boardrooms and classrooms, in laboratories, in
city halls, State houses, and courthouses to solve the urgent
environmental challenges of our time and preserve the bipartisan
environmental progress we have made.
The Trump administration needs to listen and stop waving the white
flag of surrender. Our world and the health of our children and
grandchildren is worth fighting for.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From The New York Times, April 21, 2018]
America Before Earth Day: Smog and Disasters Spurred the Laws Trump
Wants to Undo
(By Livia Albeck-Ripka and Kendra Pierre-Louis)
A huge oil spill. A river catching fire. Lakes so polluted
they were too dangerous for fishing or swimming. Air so thick
with smog it was impossible to see the horizon.
That was the environmental state of the nation 50 years
ago. But pollution and disasters prompted action. On April
22, 1970, millions of people throughout the country
demonstrated on the inaugural Earth Day, calling for air,
water and land in the country to be cleaned up and protected.
And that year, in a bipartisan effort, the Environmental
Protection Agency was created and key legislation--the Clean
Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act--
came into force.
Now, the Trump administration has made eliminating federal
regulations a priority, and an increasing number of
environmental rules are under threat.
Here's a look at five environmental disasters that shifted
the public conversation and prompted, directly or indirectly,
lawmakers to act.
The Santa Barbara Oil Spill
On January 28, 1969, an oil rig exploded off the coast of
Santa Barbara, Calif., spewing three million gallons of crude
oil into the ocean in one of the worst environmental
disasters in the history of the United States.
At the time, there were no federal measures in place to
regulate offshore drilling.
After the spill local officials pleaded with the federal
government to end oil exploration off the California coast.
But it was not until 1978 that the first federal regulations
were passed.
Just over 40 years after the Santa Barbara rig blowout, on
April 20, 2010, an even worse spill, known as the Deepwater
Horizon disaster, resulted in the tightening of federal
rules.
But this past January, the Trump administration said it
would reopen vast areas of United States coastal waters to
new offshore oil and gas drilling projects. Shortly
thereafter, the administration began the process of rolling
back safety regulations on existing rigs.
Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, has also proposed
revising a five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing,
which conservationists say would harm marine life and could
also pose a danger to humans.
The Cuyahoga River Fire
The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland in 1952. The river burned
at least 13 times before the 1969 fire that was covered by
Time magazine. On June 22, 1969, the Cuyahoga River near
Cleveland caught fire--both literally and in the public
imagination. A few months later the conflagration became a
big story in Time magazine, which described the Cuyahoga as a
river that ``oozes rather than flows.''
The story prompted outrage throughout the country, where
many rivers, after decades of industrial pollution, were too
dangerous for swimming, fishing or drinking. (The main photo
in Time was actually of the Cuyahoga when it caught fire 17
years earlier, in 1952. The river had burned at least 13
times.)
The fire, fueled by an oil slick on river's surface, and
resulting media coverage galvanized the outrage into broader
public action.
It culminated in the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act.
That measure, like the Clean Air Act, was an extension of
earlier laws. But the piecemeal nature of the earlier rules
had resulted in a lack of oversight and regulatory control.
The 1972 act coordinated the rules and gave regulatory
authority to the nascent E.P.A.
Since the law's creation, waterways across the United
States are markedly cleaner, though half still fall short of
national goals. Recent decisions, though, could lead to
backsliding.
The E.P.A. has suspended the Obama-era Waters of the United
States rules, which sought to clarify which waterways are
considered part of the national water system. Smaller bodies
of water, like intermittent streams and wetlands, have been
in a legal gray area since the 1972 act despite having
significant impact on water quality.
Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, also removed Clean
Water Act decision-making authority from regional offices,
leaving him the sole arbiter.
The Love Canal Disaster
In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal in Niagara
Falls, N.Y., began complaining of odd smells, rashes and
liquid leaching into the basements of their homes. Decades
earlier, the Hooker Chemical Company had dumped toxic waste
in the canal and buried it. Outraged, the residents of Love
Canal organized and were eventually relocated from their
town.
While the residents of Love Canal were not the first or
only community to confront the toxic legacy of industry,
their plight caught the attention of national media, and
ultimately, helped prompt the creation of the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act,
commonly known as the Superfund.
Passed by Congress in 1980, the law meant that chemical and
petroleum companies would be taxed to create a cleanup trust
fund.
Over time, however, the trust fund has dwindled, with
taxpayers increasingly footing cleanup bills. In the E.P.A.'s
2019 budget, staff cuts have been made, while some people
nominated for key positions have direct links to polluting
industries. In December, the administration also rejected a
proposed rule that mining companies prove they have the money
to clean up pollution left behind at their sites.
The Smog-Filled Skies
Pittsburghers used to say that if you wore a white shirt to
work in the morning, that the shirt would be as gray as the
air by lunchtime. In cities and towns throughout the country,
Americans didn't just breathe the air, they could all but
touch it. In the nation's National Parks, air pollution
clouded the views.
This was the United States before the 1970s Clean Air Act.
There was no single smog event that led to the act. In the
years leading up to its passage, though, ``You had growing
awareness in the scientific community about problems like
smog,'' said Eric Schaeffer, the executive director of the
Environmental Integrity Project. ``You had the beginnings of
an understanding that it was bigger than any state agency
could manage.''
The act was an overhaul and extension of the 1963 Clean Air
Act. It enabled the newly created E.P.A. to set standards
related to six key pollutants that were known to harm human
health.
In recent months the Trump administration has signaled its
desire to undo some of parts of the act. Mr. Pruitt, the
E.P.A. administrator, has said that Obama-era car emissions
standards designed to reduce greenhouse gasses and other
pollutants linked to respiratory diseases and heart disease
are set ``too high.''
The Near-Extinction of the Gray Wolf
In the early 1970s, the gray wolf was teetering on the edge
of extinction in the lower 48 states. Throughout the earlier
part of the century, the wolf was largely considered a trophy
and was hunted and skinned for its fur to within an inch of
the species' life.
In its company were dozens of other species at risk of
dying out, with few laws to protect them.
In 1973, shortly after the first Earth Day, with the
American public increasingly aware of the importance of
biodiversity, the Endangered Species Act was signed into law
by President Richard M. Nixon. The act was designed to
prohibit the killing or harassing of protected species or
damaging the habitats necessary for their survival.
Shortly thereafter, the gray wolf was listed as
``endangered'' under the act and--alongside the bald eagle,
American alligator
[[Page S2431]]
and dozens of other species--began to slowly recover in some
areas. Scientists estimate that the act has directly
prevented the extinction of more than 200 species.
The act has long been a point of contention between
industry and conservationists, and has come under criticism
from previous administrations. But under the Trump
administration, at least 63 separate legislative efforts to
weaken the act have been undertaken since January 2017,
according to the Centre for Biological Diversity.
Among them were the delisting of various species that
conservationists argue are not fully recovered, like grizzly
bears in Yellowstone National Park. The attempts to water
down the act are ``among the worst'' by any administration,
said Bruce Stein, the chief scientist of the National
Wildlife Federation.
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