|
As global temperatures rise to record levels and places across the world see devastating weather events linked to climate change, the Trump administration has begun to roll back key environmental protections designed to transition the country off of fossil fuels.
Since President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the US has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, the federal government has frozen funding for climate projects, dismantled programs aimed at curbing pollution, and planned mass reductions in staff at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency. Lee Zeldin, the current EPA administrator, has promised to roll back protections for clean air and clean water. He has promised to take “historic actions” to deregulate fossil fuel power plants, reconsider emissions regulations on vehicles, and potentially scrap the endangerment finding – a document that underpins much of EPA’s regulatory authority.
Trump himself has called climate change a “hoax.” He reaffirmed his commitment to fast-track oil and natural gas projects only hours into his second term, saying “we’re going to drill, baby, drill.”
Environmentalists, scientists, and other advocates working to decarbonize and mitigate the effects of climate change have decried these statements and sued his administration over many of the changes at the EPA.
CommonWealth Beacon spoke to Gina McCarthy — the former head of the EPA under President Barack Obama and the first White House National Climate Advisor under President Joe Biden — about the impact of the Trump administration’s policies on Massachusetts and what can be done to keep pushing forward on climate goals.
As EPA administrator, McCarthy signed the Clean Power Plan, which set the first-ever national standards for regulating power plant emissions in 2015. Under Biden, she implemented climate policy across federal agencies and pushed for the landmark Inflation Reduction Act which has provided large investments in climate change mitigation and adaptation. McCarthy is a Dorchester native and prior to joining the EPA, she served in different environmental roles under five different Massachusetts governors. She is currently a senior fellow at The Fletcher School’s Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
COMMONWEALTH BEACON: How is the Trump administration redefining the role of EPA? Can you talk about what the shift means and how it will impact the people and the environment in this country?
GINA MCCARTHY: The mission of the EPA is to protect health and safety. It’s a very simple mission, but that mission is clearly being redefined under the Trump administration. It’s going to make life considerably more challenging, especially for people in communities that have been left behind — where there’s still a tremendous amount of work needed to meet EPA’s mission.
One of the things we’re seeing right now at EPA is a real diminishment of the staff. The agency will not have the range of scientists it once had — if it has any remaining after this administration continues its efforts to reduce staff by what they hope will be 65 percent. We no longer have an Environmental Justice Office at EPA, and they are considering an entire redefinition of EPA’s mission.
We’re also seeing a rollback in millions — if not billions — of dollars that would have gone toward meeting the agency’s mission.
In particular, it’s important to recognize that the current EPA administrator is redefining the agency’s mission as “unleashing American energy.” If you look closely at that, what they’re really talking about is advancing fossil fuels.
CWB: The EPA has said that it will take action to deregulate fossil fuel power plants, reconsider emissions regulations on vehicles, and potentially scrap the endangerment finding that underpins much of EPA’s regulatory authority. What are the effects of these policy rollbacks that states like Massachusetts should be thinking about?
MCCARTHY: My fear is that they’re not really reconsidering these rules — they’re looking at ways to ensure they are no longer implemented.
One example is the Mercury and Air Toxic Standard, which I shepherded through the process when I was at EPA. That was an effort to understand the danger that mercury poses as it's emitted from smokestacks and ends up going into lakes, getting in the fish, harming children’s health, and leading to poisoning or death in some instances. That is one of the rules under reconsideration.
If you start adding up all these rollbacks, you realize they are fundamentally doing two things: 1) reducing Americans’ ability to stay healthy and safe and protect natural resources and 2) providing an opportunity for the agency itself and what it does in its mission to be destabilized.
If rules made consistent with Congress’s directives or longstanding laws are up for grabs, the agency will have no stability. The people in our country will no longer be the focus of EPA in the same way that they have been over the past decades. My main concern is that this also includes a dismantling of the agency itself.
CWB: These changes are coming at a critical time when temperatures are rising, storms are intensifying, and wildfires are devastating communities. Can you give us a sense of what these rollbacks will mean for the fight against climate change?
MCCARTHY: The fight to address climate change is one that needs to be a big fight, not a small tweak. Even the rules that EPA has available to it now won't stop the climate from changing.
These actions are not the end all be all, but it is taking the United States totally out of the picture in terms of the international community. Every other country recognizes that climate change is happening, that it's real, and that we need to address it in an international context if we want to slow down the progress that climate change itself is making.
The instability of the world in which we live, all of these terrible fires that we are seeing, all of this unsettling weather is a reflection of the change in the climate that's already happened. It will simply continue to get exacerbated, especially if one of the largest and richest countries decides to pull out of this effort.
These changes [from the Trump administration] are all intended to deny that climate change exists. They are ensuring that scientists who work on climate are silenced by basically eliminating them from the federal agencies. It's an effort not just to question science but to silence it.
It's absolutely shocking and mind boggling and should be to everyone in this country that our leaders are actually denying the biggest existential risk of our time.
CWB: How do the Trump administration’s actions taken together impact individual states?
MCCARTHY: It will be a significant disadvantage to every single state if the federal government diminishes its resources and its capabilities across the country to protect human health and the environment.
What you're seeing here across the states is an effort to basically take away services that have been provided to those states for decades. Like FEMA response when there is a problem. Now, this administration wants to delegate that to states.
Do you realize that 40 percent of EPA’s total budget goes directly to states? The reason is that states don't have the resources to protect themselves the way that the federal government has.
States are now beginning to be the place where the federal government goes to die because they don't want to do that work anymore. And they're demanding that states do it with full knowledge that states don't have the full authority or the kind of resources they need to do anything near what the federal government has been doing for decades and decades.
This is a turnaround that will do nothing but limit the ability of folks that are living in states to have healthier air and cleaner water. Most states — in fact, most Republican states — don't have the kind of state resources they need to fill the gap when the federal government decides to drop programs.
CWB: What can states do to fill the gap left by the federal government?
MCCARTHY: States have to work together. We only have a car rule [stricter emissions standards on vehicles] because 12 states have aligned together with EPA to make cleaner air because of a demand across those states. We only have cleaner air because we have had the ability to work with states to define a path that could get them there. State efforts are essential.
CWB: What tools do states like Massachusetts have to maintain stricter air and water standards?
MCCARTHY: A lot of the larger states which have good resources — like Massachusetts — can defend themselves. They can move forward. Many states have the ability to develop their own regulations and rulemaking.
But we cannot do what the federal government does. It is simply impossible. We do not have the expertise at the state level that EPA has to develop regulations and to enforce them. There are some things that are not delegated to state authority, and you cannot do it.
It's going to take a long time for states to figure out how they can power up their resources in their staffing to fill those gaps. It will be a significant step backward for our country and our states.
CWB: What kind of work can be done? Do you see hope anywhere for climate progress?
MCCARTHY: We do have to have hope. We have to understand that our opportunities are tremendous.
When [the Trump] EPA makes decisions that go to litigation, most often the agency has to continue with that work until the litigation is settled.
As much as this federal government wants to ignore clean energy, they can't because clean energy in the US has brought more power generating capacity online in 2024 than it has in the past 20 years. It's crazy. It's huge. It's exciting.
People want to see clean energy because it's advancing. It's an investment in people, in jobs, in health, and in economic growth.
People need to understand that between litigation and the excitement of the new technologies and the clean energy we have, we have time to reverse this. We have time to step up. But people are going to need to step up.
They're going to have to ask their states to step in when the federal government goes away as best they can. They’re going to have to maintain their level of excitement and hope that the clean energy world advances.
CWB: You’ve written a satirical essay called “Make America Suck Again,” praising President Trump after he issued an executive order banning paper straws in favor of plastic straws. What made you do that?
MCCARTHY: I just did it to amuse myself, to be honest with you. I had been getting so serious and so concerned that I realized I needed to lighten up. When I saw, in the middle of a presidential executive order, something that was so ludicrous as that, I just had to make fun of it.
It was basically praising the president for protecting us from the ravages of paper straws and touting the benefits of kids and others who could literally spend their lives sucking on petroleum products, which is what plastic straws are made from.
People have to read things like that and realize that they're all tongue-in-cheek. But the point was: How silly is it that a president of the United States would write that? How incredibly ridiculous is it that a president of the United States would demand that straws have to be plastic?
|
