Vote Donald Out: Earth’s Future Depends On It

Jaceybonavia/ Air, Climate, Conservation, Pollution, Water, Wildlife

The 2020 United States General Election is on November 3rd. It will be an incredibly consequential election for the future of our planet and its people. It is a fundamental right and duty to vote.

Donald

During his four years as president, Donald Trump’s administration has harmed our environment in countless ways. Researchers and investigative reporters at prestigious institutions, such as the New York Times,* the National Geographic,* the Brookings Institution, and Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, have even compiled lists of his environmental rollbacks. These rollbacks have come as regulatory actions, congressional actions, executive orders, agency orders, agency policies, memoranda, budget actions, and more.

The Christian Science Monitor highlights some of the most consequential actions of the Trump Administration:

• Tried to expedite approvals for construction of the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines
• Repealed the Stream Protection Rule for surface coal mining
• Removed the requirement to consider climate change for infrastructure projects
• Authorized drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Loosened rules on fracking on federal and tribal land
• Weakened protections of threatened birds
• Loosened rules on coal ash storage, despite contaminants such as mercury
• Rescinded the ban on the use of seismic air guns to find oil and gas under the Atlantic Ocean floor, despite adverse impacts on marine life, including whales
• Replaced the Clean Power Plan, removing electric utility emissions limits
• Decided not to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, despite known health consequences
• Weakened the habitat protections in the Endangered Species Act
• Repealed the Waters of the U.S. rule to loosen restrictions on pollutants near bodies of water
• Began the process of withdrawing from the United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change
• Eliminated the requirement for a 5% yearly increase in automotive fuel economy
• Weakened mercury regulations for power plants
• Limited state power over water quality concerns in projects
• Rolled back the environmental review process for building projects

Even on his own website, Trump brags about supporting the oil and gas industry, rescinding Obama’s Clean Power Plan and other environmental regulations, and expressing his intent to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.

It is evident that, if given four more years in the White House, the Trump Administration will continue to cause devastating, life-threatening, and even irreversible damage to the planet and its inhabitants.

Vote Joe

In contrast, Vice President Joe Biden has plans and a record that reflect his intention to protect the environment.

On his website, Vice President Biden lays out all of his major plans in detail. Three of these are specifically related to the environment. He has a plan to build back better with sustainable infrastructure and a clean energy future, a plan to tackle climate change and a plan for environmental justice. Please, I urge you to take some time and read these plans. Here are the significant bullet-points in his plans, directly quoted from his website:

Plans

Sustainable Infrastructure and a Clean Energy Future

• Build a modern infrastructure;
• Position the American Auto Industry to win the 21st century;
• Create millions of jobs producing clean electric power for American families and businesses;
• Upgrade the building sector: retrofitting buildings, upgrading schools, and building homes across America;
• Pursue a historic investment in clean energy innovation;
• Invest in sustainable agriculture and conservation; and
• Secure environmental justice and create equitable economic opportunity.

Climate

• Ensure the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050.
• Build a stronger, more resilient nation.
• Rally the rest of the world to meet the threat of climate change.
• Stand up to the abuse of power by polluters who disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities. 
• Fulfill our obligation to workers and communities who powered our industrial revolution and subsequent decades of economic growth.

Environmental Justice

• Use an inclusive and empowering All-of-Government approach;
  • Establish an Environmental and Climate Justice Division within the U.S. Department of Justice.
  • Elevate environmental justice in the federal government and modernize the all-of-government approach.
  • Overhaul the EPA External Civil Rights Compliance Office.
• Make decisions that are driven by data and science;
  • Mandate new monitoring in frontline and fenceline communities.
  • Require community notification.
  • Establish interagency teams to address targeted issues and partner directly with communities.
  • Tackle water pollution in a science-based manner. 
  • Prioritize strategies and technologies that reduce traditional air pollution in disadvantaged communities. 
• Target resources in a way that is consistent with prioritization of environmental and climate justice; and
• Assess and address risks to communities from the next public health emergency.
  • Create a National Crisis Strategy to address climate disasters that prioritizes equitable disaster risk reduction and response. 
  • Establish a Task Force to Decrease Risk of Climate Change to Children, the Elderly, People with Disabilities, and the Vulnerable.
  • Establish an Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at HHS and Launch an Infectious Disease Defense Initiative.
  • Improve the resilience of the nation’s health care system and workers in the face of natural disasters.

Obama-Biden Administration Record

• Included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act more than $90 billion and leveraged $150 billion of private and local spending for clean energy investments.
• Increased the share of domestically-produced wind turbine components made in the US from 35% in 2006-2007 to 67% in 2011 and a dramatic plunge in solar costs helping it get closer to grid parity (i.e., lower cost than traditional energy sources).
• Jump-started the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program which invested in 475 transformative energy technologies and secured $1.25 billion in private sector follow-on funding for related projects.
• Helped lead and sign the Paris Climate Agreement, setting the world on a path toward a sustainable future.
• Set bold corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards requiring a 54.5 miles-per-gallon standard for cars and light-duty trucks by model year 2025, which the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration predicted: “[would save] consumers more than $1.7 trillion in gas costs and [reduce] U.S. oil consumption by 12 billion barrels.”
• Implemented first-ever medium- and heavy-duty fuel efficiency standards projected to save nearly $170 billion in fuel costs.
• Implemented energy efficiency standards for buildings, homes and appliances, with a particular focus on saving consumers money on heating and cooling bills; in the Administration’s first term the Department of Energy and Department of Housing and Urban Development completed energy efficiency upgrades in more than 1 million homes, saving families more than $400 each on average.
• Expanded or established protections for more than 550 million acres of federal lands and waters and banned drilling in large parts of the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
• Helped create more resilient infrastructure that can withstand climate change; a 2013 Executive Order also required federal agencies to release climate change adaptation plans to plan for the adverse impacts of more extreme weather and rising sea-levels.

Although Biden is not as progressive as I would have hoped for a candidate to be, the choice is clear. If you care about climate, sustainability, and environmental justice, you must vote for Joe Biden.

Make sure you are registered to vote. Request an absentee ballot if you can. If you don’t vote absentee, make a plan to vote in-person. And, finally, ask your friends and family to vote.

*The New York Times and National Geographic articles are behind paywalls, so I could not review their content.