President Donald Trump released an Earth Day statement touting his commitment to protecting the environment, despite doing the exact opposite in the first few months of his administration.
“Our Nation is blessed with abundant natural resources and awe-inspiring beauty. Americans are rightly grateful for these God-given gifts and have an obligation to safeguard them for future generations,” Trump said in the statement Saturday. “My Administration is committed to keeping our air and water clean, to preserving our forests, lakes, and open spaces, and to protecting endangered species,”
In his first 100 days as president, Trump has moved to eliminate several protections for the environment. He signed legislation repealing the Stream Protection Rule, which protected streams from mining operations. The president has also moved to eliminate the Clean Water Rule, which protects 2 million miles of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands. Getting rid of the rule could jeopardize drinking water for nearly 120 million Americans and numerous endangered species. He has also moved to get rid of car emission and pollution standards.
The statement also noted that Trump is committed to “rigorous science” and “honest inquiry.”
“Rigorous science is critical to my Administration’s efforts to achieve the twin goals of economic growth and environmental protection,” Trump said. “My Administration is committed to advancing scientific research that leads to a better understanding of our environment and of environmental risks. As we do so, we should remember that rigorous science depends not on ideology, but on a spirit of honest inquiry and robust debate.”
But under Trump, the EPA’s Office of Science and Technology has removed “science” from its mission statement. Trump and Pruitt have questioned well established science that shows global warming is real. His administration has proposed gigantic cuts to biomedical and scientific research and, the EPA and environmental programs.
patterninstatic on April 23rd, 2017 at 05:34 UTC »
This statement actually fits within the narrative he is trying to tell. He has constantly said that the Obama regulations that he abolished were "job killers" that actually didn't even help the environment.
Why allowing dumping waste into streams doesn't hurt the environment is beyond me, but I think that his supporters genuinely believe that Trump loves the environnement (he donated his entire first quarter earning of 75k to the parcs service (while only planning to gut their budget by a cool 1.5 billion)).
The main point is that is doesn't matter what Trump has said or done in the past, whatever he says today is the truth (and always had been, we just didn't know it).
Hipsterdoucher on April 23rd, 2017 at 03:14 UTC »
My environmental record is the best, it's just the hugest success, no one has a better record on science than me, I hire the smartest scientists.
Woodie626 on April 23rd, 2017 at 02:07 UTC »
Well what did you expect?