President Trump’s first 100 days have been devastating to environment, say green activists.
Out of all the groups in the liberal coalition, environmentalists may have had the worst of it during the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.
Leading green activists say President Trump has already done a full term’s worth of damage, rolling back Obama-era regulations and installing one of their chief critics as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Since his confirmation in February, the EPA has already started to dismantle the Clean Power Plan — federal rules limiting carbon emissions from power plants — and a host of other regulations.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Pruitt are intent on reversing eight years of EPA policy under the previous administration, transitioning the agency away from its Obama-era focus on climate change and expanding its regulatory reach, toward enforcing existing protections against air and water pollution.
“I would call this an extreme agenda that for someone who didn’t even win a majority of the vote is out of line with the values of the American people,” said Erich Pica, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
He didn’t run on any of that, yet that’s what his extreme agenda is doing right now.” Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said this week that “the hallmark of the president’s first 100 days” has been a relentless “assault on our climate, environment and national heritage.” On the heels of the executive order reviewing national monuments, other environmental activists accused the president of using his first months in office to sell out the country to the fossil fuel industry.
Environmental groups also are suing the administration over virtually every move it makes on the energy and climate front, meaning many policies, ultimately, will be set by federal courts.
“The rules and the regulations will be litigated over the course of time, but it’s the budget stuff that could have the long-lasting impact on how these agencies operate,” Mr. Pica said.
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