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Kamala Harris | Voting Is the Best Way to Honor Generations of Women Who Paved the Way for Me
Kamala Harris, The Washington Post
Harris writes: "We need to make sure that everyone who's eligible to vote is able to do so - and that their vote is counted."
ne hundred years ago, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was formally adopted. Courageous American women had been organizing and protesting for seven decades to be treated as equal participants in our democracy, and their hard work finally paid off. After ratification votes from 36 states, it was official: Our Constitution would forevermore enshrine the right to vote for American women.
That is, unless you were Black. Or Latina. Or Asian. Or Indigenous.
We cannot mark this day, now known as Women’s Equality Day, without remembering all the American women who were not included in that voting rights victory a century ago. Black activists such as Ida B. Wells had dealt with discrimination and rejection from White suffragists in their work to secure the vote. And when the 19th Amendment was ratified at last, Black women were again left behind: Poll taxes, literacy tests and other Jim Crow voter suppression tactics effectively prohibited most people of color from voting.
In fact, if I had been alive in 1920, I might not have been allowed to cast a ballot alongside White women. Neither would my mother, an immigrant from India, who first taught me how sacred our vote is. It would be another 45 years until the Voting Rights Act protected the voting rights of millions more voters of color — and an additional 10 years until Latinas and Indigenous women were no longer subject to literacy tests.
So although the centennial of the 19th Amendment offers a reminder that extraordinary progress is possible, it is also a reminder that there has never truly been universal suffrage in America.
We know what we have to do to fulfill the promise embodied in the 19th Amendment: We need to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, support automatic and same-day voter registration and help fund secure state voting systems. And that is what Joe Biden and I will do when we’re in the White House.
But change cannot wait until then. Republicans are once again doing everything in their power to suppress and attack the voting rights of people of color. They are deploying suppressive voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering, voter roll purges, precinct closures and reduced early-voting days — all of which have been laser-targeted toward communities of color since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
And this year, Republicans are also spending millions on every scare tactic and trick in the book. Most visibly, they are doing what they can to take advantage of a pandemic that the president cannot, or will not, get under control. They are spreading misinformation about voting by mail — a safe and secure voting option — and they have been caught trying to politicize the U.S. Postal Service. Meanwhile, the president himself has already requested a mail-in ballot this year and encouraged his supporters to do the same in places where he needs a political advantage to win. This double standard is not right and cannot stand.
Our campaign, on the other hand, is committing the resources needed to beat back voter suppression. We need to make sure that everyone who’s eligible to vote is able to do so — and that their vote is counted.
We’re working with election officials across the country to add early-voting locations. Where possible, we’re providing absentee ballot request forms with prepaid postage and tracking applications to confirm they were submitted, in accordance with state laws. And when necessary, we’ll go to court to protect everyone’s right to access the polls and safely cast their ballot — in person or through the mail.
That said, this has to be a full team effort. Around 1920, Black women set up “suffrage schools” to teach each other how to pay a poll tax or pass the literacy test imposed on Black Americans by local election officials. So in that spirit, here’s what you, as voters, need to do: First, check that you’re registered to vote at iwillvote.com. Then, vote early if possible, either in person at your polling location while wearing a mask, or by requesting a ballot by mail, which you can mail back or drop off at drop boxes or at your local Board of Elections.
If we do that — and if we vote in numbers no one has seen before — we can prove that these past four years do not represent who we are or who we aspire to be. And we can finish the work begun long ago to bring more voices into our democracy.=
After all, when the 19th Amendment was ratified 100 years ago, it would have been unimaginable for a Black woman to be a serious contender for the vice presidency of the United States.
So this fall, remember the struggles and sacrifices that made it possible. Because the best way to honor the generations of women who paved the way for me — for all of us — is to vote, and to continue their fight for all Americans to be able to do the same, no matter their gender, race, age, ability or Zip code.
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Protestors gather at Black Lives Matter Plaza as President Donald Trump accepts the nomination as the Republican candidate for president during the Republican National Convention in Washington, on August 27, 2020. (photo: Jack Gruber/USA TODAY)
Protesters Outside the White House Make Themselves Heard Inside as Trump Delivers RNC Speech
Matthew Brown, David Jackson and Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY
Excerpt: "Raucous protesters chanted and banged drums near the White House as more than a thousand guests of the president were gathered inside in advance of President Donald Trump's acceptance speech."
An area outside had also become a dance party featuring EDM remixes of MoTown music.
The noise – along with occasional police sirens – could be heard faintly from within the White House grounds. Another area had turned into a raucus dance party.
“Black women matter, because we get stuff done!” some yelled.
Shortly before 10:30, while Ivanka Trump was in the middle of her speech to introduce her father, protesters began using bullhorns, whistles and bells while chanting “Black Lives Matter” just outside the White House.
Minutes later, protesters beyond the gates began setting off firecrackers at the start of Trump's speech. They also amped up the horn-blowing and the chants – all audible from the South Lawn of the White House – but none of it seemed to distract Trump or his supporters, who chanted "USA!" and "Four More Years!"
About 10 minutes into his speech, though, the horns, sounding similar to the vuvuzela that dominated the background of the 2010 World Cup, grew louder and was audible on televised broadcasts of the speech.
Outside the gates, crowds chanted "Black Lives Matter" and "No justice, no peace!”
The crowds were gathered between the White House and National Mall and in Black Lives Matter Plaza, the epicenter of the protests earlier this year over racial injustice amid the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of law enforcement.
At least two groups planned protests on city property near the White House Thursday night. Refuse Fascism is holding a #TrumpPenceOutNOW rally down the street in Black Lives Matter Plaza – renamed amid the protests earlier this summer. The Party Majority PAC, which was founded by former Clinton aides, is organizing a #ThePeoplesHouse demonstration nearby.
Fencing and barriers around the White House have been bolstered ahead of Thursday night's events in anticipation of the protests. Demonstrations outside the White House following Floyd's death led to some vandalism and violent confrontations with security forces, notably after authorities cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters for Trump's walk to nearby St. John's Church for a photo op.
Refuse Fascism co-founder Carl Dix said his organization – which began planning the demonstration after Trump decided his acceptance speech would be delivered at the White House – initially only expected a few dozen participants but that interest had swelled after Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in the back this week by police.
Dix said he initially expected only a small crowd, but convention speakers denounced demonstrations and a Missouri couple, who became famous for pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, among its speakers, he thought
"That's why I expect that there will be an even larger crowd of people in D.C.," Dix told USA TODAY.
The streets outside the White House were crowded.
The handmade sign held aloft by one man read “My Melanin is not a threat.”
The sign of another protester declared: “Defund the police is a strategy. Abolish the police is the goal.”
Republicans have repeatedly accused Joe Biden of wanting to defund the police. Biden has said he does not support that and has called for a $300 million increase in police funding to address concerns about racial profiling.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci in Washington, D.C. on 30 June. (photo: Reuters)
Fauci Says He Was Under Anesthesia When CDC Changed COVID-19 Testing Guidelines
Justin Baragona and Asawin Suebsaeng, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump has repeatedly groused that increased testing has resulted in more cases in America, calling it a 'double-edged sword' and suggesting that the country should do less testing."
“I’m concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations. I’m worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern.”
he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its COVID-19 testing guidelines this week to exclude people without symptoms of coronavirus, even if they’ve recently been in contact with infected individuals. Studies, meanwhile, find nearly half of infections are from asymptomatic transmissions.
Amid reports that the sudden change in guidelines came from the “top” of the Trump administration, CNN reported on Wednesday that top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci was incapacitated when the decision was made.
“He said, ‘I was under general anesthesia in the operating room,’” CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said, reading comments from Fauci, who had surgery last week to remove a polyp on his vocal cord. “‘Last Thursday was not part of any discussion or deliberation regarding these new testing recommendations… I’m concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations. I’m worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is.’”
Fauci, however, later told NBC News that he didn't believe that the administration was trying to go around him while he was out.
“This was not an end run at all,” the immunologist said to political reporter Kelly O'Donnell. “I just happened not to be there during the final discussions. No intrigue here.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly groused that increased testing has resulted in more cases in America, calling it a “double-edged sword” and suggesting that the country should do less testing.
On Wednesday, The New York Times and CNN reported that “pressure” for the change to the CDC’s COVID-19 guidelines came from top officials of the Trump administration.
“It’s coming from the top down,” an official told CNN.
Michael Caputo, assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, blasted those reports on Wednesday, telling The Daily Beast, “This did not come from the politicians.
“I’m sure there are some middling individuals at the CDC who are dissatisfied with the weather, with the car they drive, with their work environment, but at the end of the day the fact of the matter is, this came from the CDC, this came from the scientist, this came from the task force,” he said. “The politicians had nothing to do with it. No Trump, no Pence, no Azar.”
“CNN is sad...that all the indications are moving in the right direction,” Caputo insisted. “At this point they’re flat out putting out disinformation because they need to destroy Donald Trump. And if more people get sick in the meantime, that doesn’t matter to CNN.”
In a statement issued Wednesday evening, HHS said the guidelines had been updated “to reflect current evidence and best public health practices, and to further emphasize using CDC-approved prevention strategies to protect yourself, your family, and the most vulnerable of all ages.”
“As always, the guidelines received appropriate attention, consultation, and input from fellow Task Force experts, including CDC Director Redfield, who advise coronavirus-related matters among departments and agencies,” the statement added.
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Riot police move protesters after confrontations between protesters and militia members in Stone Mountain, Georgia. (photo: Nathan Posner/Shutterstock)
White Supremacists and Militias Have Infiltrated Police Across US, Report Says
Sam Levin, Guardian UK
Levin writes: "White supremacist groups have infiltrated US law enforcement agencies in every region of the country over the last two decades, according to a new report about the ties between police and far-right vigilante groups."
A former FBI agent has documented links between serving officers and racist militant activities in more than a dozen states
In a timely new analysis, Michael German, a former FBI special agent who has written extensively on the ways that US law enforcement have failed to respond to far-right domestic terror threats, concludes that US law enforcement officials have been tied to racist militant activities in more than a dozen states since 2000, and hundreds of police officers have been caught posting racist and bigoted social media content.
The report notes that over the years, police links to militias and white supremacist groups have been uncovered in states including Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.
Police in Sacramento, California, in 2018 worked with neo-Nazis to pursue charges against anti-racist activists, including some who had been stabbed, according to records.
And just this summer, German writes, an Orange county sheriff’s deputy and a Chicago policeman were caught wearing far-right militia logos; an Olympia, Washington, officer was photographed posing with a militia group; and Philadelphia police officers were filmed standing by while armed mobs attacked protesters and journalists.
The exact scale of ties between law enforcement and militias is hard to determine, German told the Guardian. “Nobody is collecting the data and nobody is actively looking for these law enforcement officers,” he said.
Officers’ racist activities are often known within their departments and generally result in punishment or termination following public scandals, the report notes. Few police agencies have explicit policies against affiliating with white supremacist groups. If police officers are disciplined, the measures often lead to protracted litigation.
Concerns about alleged relations between far-right groups and law enforcement in the US have intensified since the start of the protest movement sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. Police in states including California, Oregon, Illinois and Washington are now facing investigations for their alleged affinity to far-right groups opposing Black Lives Matter, according to the report.
This week, police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, faced intense scrutiny over their response to armed white men and militia groups gathered in the city amid demonstrations by Black Lives Matter activists and others over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black father of three who was left paralyzed after being shot in the back. On Wednesday, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old who appeared to consider himself a militia member and had posted “blue lives matter” content, was arrested on suspicion of murder after the fatal shooting of two protesters.
Activists in Kenosha say police there have responded aggressively and violently to Black Lives Matter demonstrators, while doing little to stop armed white vigilantes. Supporting their claims is at least one video taken before the shooting that showed police tossing bottled water to what appeared to be armed civilians, including one who appeared to be the shooter, the AP noted: “We appreciate you being here,” an officer said on loudspeaker.
Police also reportedly let the gunman walk past them with a rifle as the crowd yelled for him to be arrested because he had shot people, according to witnesses and video reviewed by the news agency.
The Kenosha sheriff, David Beth, has said the incident was chaotic and stressful.
German told the Guardian on Wednesday: “Far-right militants are allowed to engage in violence and walk away while protesters are met with violent police actions.” This “negligent response”, he added, empowers violent groups in dangerous and potentially lethal ways: “The most violent elements within these far-right militant groups believe that their conduct is sanctioned by the government. And therefore they’re much more willing to come out and engage in acts of violence against protesters.”
There is growing awareness in some parts of the government about the intensifying threat of white supremacy. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have directly identified white supremacists as the most lethal domestic terrorist threat in the country. According to German’s report, the FBI’s own internal documents have directly warned that the militia groups the agency is investigating often have “active links” to law enforcement.
And yet US agencies lack a national strategy to identify white supremacist police and root out this problem, German warned. Meanwhile, popular police reform efforts to address “implicit bias” have done nothing to confront explicit racism.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As the calls to defund police have grown in recent months, law enforcement alignment with violent and racist groups only adds further fuel to the movement, German said. “In a time when the effort to defund police is getting some salience, the police are behaving in such a way as to justify that argument.”
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Police Chief Dan Miskinis speaks at a news conference on August 26, 2020, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (photo: Brandon Bell/Getty)
ALSO SEE: Kenosha Police Chief Blames Protesters for Their Own Deaths,
Defends Vigilante Groups
ACLU Demands Kenosha Officials Resign Following the Shooting of Jacob Blake
Marty Johnson, The Hill
Johnson writes: "The American Civil Liberties Union has called for the ousting of three Kenosha, Wisconsin, officials following the response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the killing of two protesters."
The influential activist organization said in a statement on Thursday that it wants Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth and Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian to resign.
“The ACLU strongly condemns Sheriff Beth and Police Chief Miskinis’ response to both the attempted murder of Jacob Blake and the protests demanding justice for him. Their actions uphold and defend white supremacy, while demonizing people who were murdered for exercising their first amendment rights and speaking out against police violence.” said Chris Ott, executive director of the ACLU's Wisconsin branch. “The only way to rectify these actions is for both Sheriff Beth and Police Chief Daniel Miskinis to immediately tender their resignations.”
Miskinis, Beth and Antaramian led a press conference Wednesday afternoon that lacked new, definitive facts about the shooting of Blake and the protesters.
But at one point, Miskinis suggested that the fatal shooting of the two protesters, and a third person who was injured, was the fault of people who were on the streets of Kenosha past the city's recently imposed 7 p.m. curfew.
Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Ill., was charged earlier on Wednesday in connection to the shooting on Tuesday.
"Everybody involved was out after the curfew," Miskinis said. "I'm not [going to] make a great deal of it but the point is — the curfew's in place to protect. Had persons not been out involved in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened."
He added: "This is not a police action. This is not the action, I believe, of those who set out to do protests. It is the persons who were involved after the legal time, involved in illegal activity, that brought violence to this community."
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) also revealed on Wednesday that the officer who shot Blake, 29, was Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department.
Blake was seriously wounded Sunday afternoon when Sheskey shot him seven times in the back at point-blank range while responding to a reported domestic incident.
Graphic cellphone footage showed Blake walking away from a pair of police officers toward his car. As he attempted to get in his car — where his three children were — an officer could be seen pulling Blake back by his shirt before firing off several rounds.
Witnesses have said that Blake was not part of the domestic incident but was trying to break it up when police arrived.
Protests have rocked Kenosha since Blake was shot. Property damage has been reported at local businesses, prompting Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) to mobilize the state's National Guard.
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Israel has maintained a crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip since 2007. (photo: Reuters)
Israel Bombs Gaza for Fourth Week Despite Mediation
Middle East Eye
Excerpt: "Israeli aircraft and tanks launched raids against Gaza early on Friday and groups fired rockets from the blockaded coastal enclave, as mediators sought to broker an end to the latest flare-up."
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Flames erupt from brush along the road near Lake Berryessa, California. (photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/Getty)
Another Trump Term Would Mean Severe and Irreversible Changes in the Climate
David Roberts, Vox
Roberts writes: "If Donald Trump is reelected president, the likely result will be irreversible changes to the climate that will degrade the quality of life of every subsequent generation of human beings, with millions of lives harmed or foreshortened."
No joke: It would be disastrous on the scale of millennia.
That’s in addition to the hundreds of thousands of lives at present that will be hurt or prematurely end.
This sounds like exaggeration, some of the “alarmism” green types are always accused of. But it is not particularly controversial among those who have followed Trump’s record on energy and climate change.
“As bad as it seems right now,” says Josh Freed of Third Way, a center-left think tank, “the climate and energy scenario in Trump II would be much, much worse.”
The damage has not primarily been done, and won’t primarily be done, by Congress, except through inaction (which is no small thing). Under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate has effectively abdicated its duty as a legislative body; it now mostly exists to approve far-right judges to the federal bench.
In what follows, I’ll assume that if Trump wins, Republicans keep the Senate — and that the situation remains as is, with Congress divided and gridlocked, unable to pass major legislation or effectively restrain Trump. (It is possible that Trump wins and Democrats take both houses of Congress, but thinking about that breaks my brain.)
I’m going to do a quick review of Trump’s record so far on climate and energy. By necessity, it is not comprehensive. The amount of damage done, not only on high-profile issues but through unceasing daily efforts to weaken and degrade the federal bureaucracy, could fill volumes. I’ll just look at the highlights, with a focus on what Trump wants to do and is more likely to get away with in a second term.
First, though, let’s talk about the main thing, which is that a Trump victory would make any reasonable definition of “success” on climate change impossible.
(Note: I asked lots of people for their thoughts on a second Trump term, and for the most part, they did not want to speak on record or in specifics, for fear of giving Trump ideas. The sense of dread is palpable.)
More Trump will ensure the continued escalation of global temperatures
We know from the latest IPCC report that the climate target agreed to by nations — no more than a 2° Celsius rise in global average temperatures — is not a “safe” threshold at all. Going from 1.5° to 2° means many more heat waves, wildfires, crop failures, migrations, and premature deaths. We know that every fraction of a degree beyond 2° means more still, along with the increasing risk of tipping points that make further warming unstoppable.
Hitting the 1.5° target would require the world to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050. Doing so would require industrial mobilization beginning immediately. Even hitting 2° would be desperately difficult at this point. There is no longer any time for delay; this is the last decade in which it is still possible.
We know that the US doing its part to reach net zero by 2050 would not be enough, in itself, to limit global temperature rise. By the same token, we know it is wildly unlikely that the rest of the world will be able to organize to meet that goal without US leadership. And in the face of active US undermining and opposition, it will be all but impossible.
Climate policy is complicated, but in the end, it comes down to replacing everything powered by fossil fuels with zero-carbon alternatives, and we know beyond any doubt that the Trump administration is devoted to the interests of its allies in the fossil fuel industry. Everything the administration has done since taking office reflects a single-minded zeal to release fossil fuel industries from regulatory restraints and to subsidize them through public policy.
US carbon emissions have been declining, down roughly 12 percent since 2004. That’s almost entirely due to the market-driven decline of coal in the electricity sector, a trend that analysts expect to continue. The Trump administration disingenuously takes credit for it. But it won’t be enough, on its own, to reduce emissions fast enough to stay on track for net zero by 2050. Not even close.
The US needs to completely transition off electricity generated by coal and natural gas, vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel, and buildings heated by natural gas and oil — and quickly.
Everything Trump has done pushes in the opposite direction. Four more years of Trump, backed by a Republican Senate, will mean a heavy drag on global efforts to control carbon. Progress on decarbonization will slow in the US, and the example America sets will slow other nations’ progress as well, making the aforementioned 10-year mobilization all but impossible. That is a difference that will reverberate for centuries.
Now let’s look at his record.
Trump has steadily rolled back regulations on fossil fuel companies
“When I think about the horrors of a Trump term two, I think about lock-in of domestic policies,” says Sam Ricketts of Evergreen Action, “buttressed — and in places even made permanent — by his continuing to stack the courts.”
In his first term, Trump has blocked, weakened, or rolled back 100 environmental, public health, and worker safety regulations. Among them are virtually all the steps Obama took to address climate change, from the Clean Power Plan for the electricity sector to tighter fuel economy standards for transportation, emissions standards on methane for oil and gas operations, efforts to integrate a “social cost of carbon” for agency decision-making, reform of fossil fuel leasing on public land, and energy efficiency standards on light bulbs. (Trump also wants to go after toilets and showerheads.)
Every one of those decisions would have the effect of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmentalists have sued over all of them, and thus far, Trump has lost more cases than he has won. Many of the rule changes pushed through by his agencies are being rejected by courts for being rushed and shoddy.
Given another term, Trump’s agencies will have more time to fill out those arguments and resubmit those rules; almost any rule can be justified eventually. Meanwhile, the federal bench will be packed with more sympathetic Trump appointees ready to rubber-stamp those rules.
And if federal judges object, the administration can appeal the cases to the Supreme Court, where Trump will almost certainly have had the opportunity to replace a justice or two. With a solid 6-3 or 7-2 majority on the Court, virtually anything the administration wants will end up being approved.
For example, Trump’s Department of Interior tried to rescind Obama’s 2016 rules limiting methane emissions from oil and gas operations on public land; the court recently rejected the attempt, calling it “defectively promulgated” and “wholly inadequate.” Given time and a friendlier court, the rule would be doomed. (Here’s a comprehensive tracker of all the rule changes so far, and their status.)
The administration is also going after other methane rules on oil and gas operations, and in the process, trying to change the EPA’s rulemaking process to make future regulations more difficult. That brings us to a key point.
The Trump administration is stacking the deck to advantage fossil fuels
Aside from all the rules the administration has eviscerated, is eviscerating, and plans to eviscerate, it is also pushing several changes to agency procedures that will make it more difficult to regulate in the future.
Under administrator Andrew Wheeler, the EPA has proposed to alter the way it does cost-benefit analysis to exclude consideration of a rule’s “co-benefits” — reductions in other pollutants that come as a side effect of reducing targeted pollutants. (A coalition of environmental groups has opposed the change, which violates EPA precedent, statutory intent, and common sense.) If the change goes into effect — as it surely will given another term and friendlier courts — all future air quality rules will be weakened.
The EPA has also promulgated a “secret science rule” that would exclude from consideration a wide swath of studies demonstrating the danger of air pollution (including its danger in helping spread Covid-19). Without those studies to rely on, justifying public health regulations would be more difficult going forward. The EPA’s own independent board of science advisers said the change would “reduce scientific integrity” at the agency.
Speaking of independent science advisers, starting under Pruitt, the EPA began pushing out science advisers who had received grants from the agency (which includes most of them) and replacing them with fossil fuel cronies. Amusingly, even a science board packed with Trump appointees has said that three of the agency’s major recent rule changes flew in the face of established science. Still, given another term to finish the job, Wheeler could effectively eliminate independent scientific review at the agency.
The administration has also gutted the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), which requires the federal government to rigorously assess the effects of its actions on the environment and local communities, and is one of the principal avenues through which communities of color and other vulnerable communities communicate their interests to the federal government.
In July, the White House Council on Environmental Quality released a proposed rule that would dramatically limit the range of federal agency actions to which NEPA applies, limit consideration of cumulative and indirect impacts (like climate change and environmental justice), and curtail public involvement in the decision-making process and judicial review. Given another term to see the change through, the White House could shape every major federal agency decision going forward.
The administration is also trying to revoke California’s waiver under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to set its own (typically more ambitious) emissions standards. If it succeeds, it would sabotage not only California’s standards but those of the 13 states (and Washington, DC) that have adopted them.
And it won’t be the only way a vindictive Trump could go after his perceived enemies. “Blue states will be starved of federal funding, which means massive cuts that inevitably lead to a degradation in environmental enforcement and investment in cleaner energy,” says Freed, “but also likely big reductions in mass transit funding and aid to cities that will push more people into cars and more emissions.”
Over at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Trump appointees have pushed through a Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR). It’s quite technical (I explain it here), but the net result is that state policies meant to support clean energy will be cancelled out in regional energy wholesale markets. It would cost consumers billions of dollars and prop up uneconomic coal power plants.
The MOPR is also under litigation from multiple groups. Again, given four more years and a compliant Supreme Court, it will probably stick. And FERC’s Republican commissioners have said they want to expand its use.
FERC also recently pushed through reforms to PURPA (the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act) that would disadvantage small-scale clean energy projects. And it has long pushed an argument for ending net-metering programs (which incentivize rooftop solar) nationwide; that and other steps against distributed energy resources will likely feature in a second term.
At least in this term, the administration chose not to go directly after the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which classifies greenhouse gases as pollutants subject to the Clean Air Act. Rumors abound that the administration will go after it in a second term, given a friendlier Supreme Court. That would take one of the only major existing regulatory tools against greenhouse gases in the US off the table.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, an emboldened conservative majority is likely to go after the Chevron doctrine, which gives federal agencies wide latitude in interpreting congressional directives. “I don’t think it’s a matter of if Chevron would be overturned,” says Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power 2020, “just a matter of what case gets them to do it.”
Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch have recently been making noise about radically limiting the ability of federal agencies to regulate at all, under a hyper-conservative interpretation of the “nondelegation doctrine.”
“It’s impossible to exaggerate the importance of this issue,” my colleague Ian Millhiser writes. “Countless federal laws, from the Clean Air Act to the Affordable Care Act, lay out a broad federal policy and delegate to an agency the power to implement the details of that policy. Under Kavanaugh’s approach, many of these laws are unconstitutional, as are numerous existing regulations governing polluters, health providers, and employers.”
There may already be five conservative votes on the court for this radical lurch backward. If Trump gets another two SCOTUS appointments, it is all but a certainty.
Land, water, and wildlife are also getting the shaft
I’ve mostly been focusing on the EPA and energy, but Trump’s damage is omnidirectional.
Earlier this year, the administration gutted Obama’s Waters of the US (WOTUS) rule, removing pollution protections from a wide swathe of wetlands and streams.
Over at the Department of Interior, Trump’s first appointee, Ryan Zinke, went on an industry-friendly bender, weakening land and species protections, ramping up oil and gas leasing on public land, and purging senior staff and 4,000 jobs. He eventually resigned amid a hail of ethics investigations — so many the New York Times had to put together a guide — and some are ongoing.
Zinke was replaced by oil lobbyist David Bernhardt, who managed to get as far as rolling back a bunch of wildlife protections before also coming under investigation for conflicts of interest. He has held on so far, though, and has a long wish list (there’s a tracker here), with almost every proposed change devoted in one way or another to weakening wildlife protections and expanding oil and gas drilling on public land.
A second Trump term will almost certainly see a renewed push for more offshore oil and gas drilling, expanding on the recent opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A plan to open virtually all the nation’s coastal waters to drilling was put “on hold” after pushback from courts and coastal communities last year, but it will return, as will further delays for offshore wind projects.
Bernhardt also moved the headquarters of DOI’s Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colorado (a fossil fuel hub), and gave DC staff 30 days to decide whether to follow. Predictably, and by intent, the move resulted in an enormous brain drain, as about half of the experienced staff left.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue did something similar, moving the USDA’s Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture — research agencies investigating, among other things, lower-carbon regenerative agriculture — to Kansas City. Critics saw the move as an obvious bid to make filling positions and coordinating with other federal researchers more difficult, thus strengthening the influence of big, carbon-intensive industrial agriculture.
There is no telling how many more agencies Trump could gut given four more years. Many staff, at EPA and other agencies, have been holding on to hopes of a new president. If Trump is reelected, there’s likely to be a huge exodus of knowledge and talent from the federal government.
Trump’s foreign policy is entirely devoted to fossil fuels
Promoting fossil fuels has been one of the few consistent themes of Trump’s foreign policy.
He announced early on, amid a flurry of misinformation, that the US would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. (That decision will go into effect on November 5.) Though some State Department staffers are still attending international climate meetings and participating in lower-level dialogues, top US leadership has spurned the entire process and shows no sign of reengaging.
Instead, Trump is trying to manage oil prices by making deals with cartels, bullying other countries to buy US oil, seeking to export liquid natural gas to India, and jostling with Russia and China over trade routes through the melting Arctic.
In a second term, Trump is unlikely to rejoin Paris; he’s much more likely to remove the US from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change entirely. It is an open question whether the Paris framework could survive that at all.
Four more years of Trump would leave democracy, and hope for a safe climate, in tatters
The above constitutes a highly selective list, a small portion of the damage Trump has done to climate and energy progress across federal agencies and international agreements. There are plenty of other examples to cite, including his beloved trade wars, which he will undoubtedly expand in a second term. A recent analysis found that his solar tariffs to date have cost 62,000 jobs in the solar industry and blocked 10.5 gigawatts of new solar from coming online. (If you can stomach a more comprehensive list, check out this piece from the Global Current.)
The main bulwark against Trump’s changes so far has been the courts, but that bulwark will not hold against an administration with four more years to bolster its legal cases and appoint sympathetic judges.
Under Trump and McConnell, the Senate has already appointed 200 federal judges, almost a quarter of the total number. If McConnell keeps the Senate, the next four years could see half of federal judges being Trump appointees and a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. That would likely mean a rapid return to pre-New Deal jurisprudence, radically curtailing the reach of foundational environmental laws. Trump — or, more precisely, the Federalist Society — would be utterly unrestrained.
And that’s not even accounting for the possibility that Trump could simply ignore court judgments he doesn’t like, which seems to be the logical next step for an administration that has faced so little accountability for its law-breaking.
In a second term, especially if Republicans keep the Senate, there would be few tools left to use against Trump’s march into the fossil fuel past. Big businesses and financial institutions might exert some influence. The EU might impose a border adjustment tax. But most hope would fall on direct activism.
Yet activism is only going to get more difficult, as it tends to under authoritarian states. “It’s impossible to separate the massive, vicious assault on democracy and civil rights Trump would prosecute in a second term from the actions he would take on climate and energy,” says Freed. Many states have been passing laws ramping up the scope and severity of penalties for direct activism, increasingly being redefined as “domestic terrorism.” Trump’s use of federal forces to brutalize protesters in Portland is likely a preview of a much more extensive crackdown on civil disobedience in a second term. Some environmental groups are already having serious discussions about how to prepare their members.
There’s no sugarcoating it: If Trump wins the election and Republicans keep the Senate, democracy in America might not survive. At the very least, any hope of public policy to rapidly decarbonize the US is off the table. The US will push actively in the opposite direction.
I often think about this passage from a 2016 commentary in the journal Nature (signed by 22 noted climate scientists):
Policy decisions made during [coming years] are likely to result in changes to Earth’s climate system measured in millennia rather than human lifespans, with associated socioeconomic and ecological impacts that will exacerbate the risks and damages to society and ecosystems that are projected for the twenty-first century and propagate into the future for many thousands of years.
Thousands of years.
Trump’s damage to the climate is not like his damage to the immigration system or the health care system. It can’t be undone. It can’t be repaired. Changes to the climate are, for all intents and purposes, irreversible. They will be experienced by every generation to come.
It is a cliché by now to call this the most important election of our lifetimes, but even that dramatic phrasing doesn’t capture the stakes. From the perspective of the human species as a whole, the arc of its life on this planet, it may be the most important election ever.
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