Last month, President Trump released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, which calls for sharp cuts to many agencies in order to fund increases in defense and military spending. Hardest hit is the Environmental Protection Agency. Already underfunded, EPA will simply not be able to carry out its statutory mandates to keep our environment clean and healthy if subjected to Trump's proposed cut of 31 percent. Rather, the Trump administration asserts that the agency would "primarily support States and Tribes in their important role protecting air, land, and water in the 21st Century." It's hard to imagine how EPA could do that, however, as the budget also slashes federal funding of state environmental programs by almost half.
The state grant program exists because of the recognition that states do have an essential role in the protection of our nation's environment but that they simply cannot serve that role without significant federal funding given the immensity and multi-faceted nature of environmental problems. State environmental agencies existed before EPA's creation and before Congress charged it with protecting the environment in various ways. Recognizing that environmental harms were not confined to the borders of any one state, and yet that the sources of those harms necessarily resided within a state (or several states), federal environmental statutes all establish a system of collaborating with states so they can continue to serve their traditional role in protecting public health and safety from environmental dangers.
The system of environmental protection that has developed since Congress enacted these statutes is an example of the principle of federalism at work – and a highly successful example at that. That is, the federal government works closely with and in support of states in the collective quest to keep our air and water safe, to clean up toxic waste, and to respond to the catastrophic risks of climate change.
Notwithstanding its nod to state authority, Trump's budget proposal, then, guts state environmental agencies when it guts EPA. The proposal does not in fact recognize states' "important role" in environmental protection. Rather, it requires that states perform the impossible: shouldering the nation's environmental problems essentially alone, with virtually no federal support in the form not only of funding, but also vital expertise (in, for example, disaster response) and equipment (for example, air pollution monitoring).
In short, President Trump's budget "blueprint" disempowers states and sets them up for failure, thereby depriving all Americans of the most basic health, safety, and environmental protections.
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Karen Sokol | April 11, 2017
Last month, President Trump released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, which calls for sharp cuts to many agencies in order to fund increases in defense and military spending. Hardest hit is the Environmental Protection Agency. Already underfunded, EPA will simply not be able to carry out its statutory mandates to keep our environment […]
Matt Shudtz | April 10, 2017
Thank goodness for state-level policymakers who are resisting the Trump administration’s extreme policies. Attorneys general from around the nation are making headlines by fighting Trump’s discriminatory immigration ban. Governors from both major political parties stood up to the attempt to strip away health care from millions of hard-working Americans and their children. And mayors and […]
Michelle Zemil | April 7, 2017
It was Ronald Reagan who popularized attacks on regulations when he was on the campaign trail in 1980, and since then, the tactic has been an inescapable feature of our political landscape. The false claims about environmental regulations, job creation, and the economy have been repeated so frequently and for so long that many Americans […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | April 5, 2017
This op-ed originally ran in the Raleigh News & Observer. The civil justice system in North Carolina exists to protect people and their property from unreasonable actions by others. One of the longest standing causes of action in civil courts is for nuisance claims, which allow you to bring suit when your neighbor creates a […]
Matthew Freeman | April 4, 2017
This June marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway, the great sea battle that was the turning point of the war in the Pacific. The American victory over the Japanese at Midway, a tiny atoll literally midway between California and Japan, ended the period of expansion of Japanese-held territory in the Pacific. And […]
Matthew Freeman | April 3, 2017
CPR Member Scholars published another bumper crop of op-eds this past month. We maintain a running list on our op-eds page, but to save CPRBlog readers a click or two, here’s a quick rundown: On March 3, David Driesen had a piece in The Hill – that’s a Washington, D.C., outlet aimed at the policy community […]
Victor Flatt | April 3, 2017
This op-ed originally ran in the Raleigh News & Observer. President Trump’s new “energy” executive order is an attempt to roll back Obama regulations on climate change, and even make considerations of climate change disappear from much of the policymaking process altogether. That’s quite a lot to accomplish by executive order, and despite all the […]
Emily Hammond | March 29, 2017
Donald Trump's anti-climate action executive order is, as CPR President Rob Verchick puts it, a classic act of bullying. As I describe in an annotated version of the order, it is also irrational, failing to achieve the very aims it purports to support while inflicting damage to our climate, environment, natural resources, wildlife, and yes […]
Robert Verchick | March 28, 2017
Donald Trump has been in office only 68 days, and already I’ve passed the threshold from shock to boredom. His order to erase climate change from federal policy, preceded by a speech before captive members of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only seals the deal. I served at the EPA during President Obama’s first term, […]