Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency have been warned to “expect” some executive orders from the President very soon. While we aren’t sure what this means, it has been apparent from the President’s own statements on the EPA that he views them as the enemy, and these executive orders will likely reflect that. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
Early last week, officials at the EPA were told by members of the Trump Administration to expect some executive orders coming your way. According to the EPA officials, they were not told anything beyond that, other than the fact that executive orders are coming and they’re going to affect your jobs and your agency.
We know that Donald Trump, during his campaign, promised to slash and burn everything at the EPA. They had talked about cutting the EPA’s budget. They had talked about repealing EPA rules, such as the clean power plant rule, and essentially, according to some Republicans in the House of Representatives, they want to do away with the EPA altogether. Trump hasn’t specifically said that, but, again, Republicans in Congress have.
The EPA right now is terrified over the fact that they have warning that executive orders are coming, and they don’t know what they are going to be, because, again, just like with the other executive orders Donald Trump has issued, he has not consulted with any of the agencies that these orders have affected.
But here is what so terrifying about this. When it comes to protecting the environment, when it comes to mitigating the effects of climate change, the United States, and by extension the entire world at this point, is behind the curve. We cannot do enough at this point to prevent the catastrophic damage that is projected to happen because of climate change. We can’t. Time’s up and we lost.
For the President, for his Administration to come out and tell EPA officials that, “We’re going to issue some executive orders, and you’re probably not going to like them,” that’s bad news for the environment, and anything that’s bad news for the environment is bad news for the American public, and people need to start waking up to that. EPA regulations do not kill American jobs. EPA regulations, and safeguards, and safety standards actually create a net economic benefit, and they create jobs. They create revenue. They’re good all around.
The only people that they I guess you could say hurt are CEOs who have to pay a little bit of extra money to not poison the environment, to not poison the public. Is that such a bad thing? Is it a bad idea to have an organization out there that makes sure that our water is clean, that our air is clean, that the land is clean, that our crops aren’t damaged? Is it such a bad thing to have somebody looking over corporations’ shoulders to make sure of this?
If it is, I don’t get it, because we need that. We need oversight in the United States. Oversight is not a bad thing. Both from a consumer standpoint and from an economic standpoint, it makes perfect sense.
We’re going to lose so much money as a country, projected in the tens of billions of dollars, from the cuts that are being made to the EPA. It’s going to cost jobs. It’s going to create more illnesses in the United States that lead to more sick days, that force corporations to pay out money for people who aren’t able to show up for work. How does that work for companies? You may not want to pay the money to keep the air clean, but you’re going to be paying money for the increased number of sick days that your workers call in. You still have to pay them, but you’re getting no productivity. Why don’t you run the numbers on that and tell me which one is greater?
That’s what we can expect. Donald Trump has made it clear that his Administration is an enemy of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Republicans in the House of Representatives have made it clear that they want to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency.
This EPA, it was created by Richard Nixon, one of the only good things Richard Nixon did. This is a Republican legacy, the EPA, and if I were a Republican, I’d damn sure make sure I did everything possible to protect that.
