Trump Deregulation Ignores Both Science and Law

Writing in The Hill, CPR's Bill Buzbee and Mažeika Patricio Sullivan expand on a point they and their co-authors on an important article in Science magazine in August made ably: The Trump administration is running roughshod over science and law in its efforts to deregulate.

Throughout his time in office, President Donald J. Trump has boasted about cutting regulations. His antagonism to environmental regulation has been particularly virulent and incessant. By one count, Trump Administration agencies have initiated or completed 100 environmental rollbacks. By thwarting often bipartisan legislative environmental protection goals adopted over the course of 50 years, President Trump's actions create serious threats to public health and environmental integrity. The Administration's suppression of public participation in regulatory decision-making has also undercut the ability of people and communities harmed by the Administration's deregulatory frenzy to protect themselves. These anti-environmental and anti-democratic practices converged in the Administration's recent revisions to the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ) regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Since the very beginning of the pandemic, public health officials have warned of a second wave of COVID infections. With no epidemiological background, I’d say the impact of the virus looks more like a wildfire rolling across a forest seeking fresh fuel. But I fear that I am on the front side of a different sort of second wave. When the pandemic forced shutdowns across the country in March and April, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Some of us, myself included, were fortunate to work for organizations that have been able to weather the storm in a “virtual office.” But with September approaching, and schools forced to navigate uncharted waters, there are hard choices to be made. My wife and I had to make one such choice not long ago, and as a result, I'm leaving the best job I've ever had.

This week, CPR is launching its Beyond 12866 initiative, an online platform focused on promoting a progressive vision for rebuilding the U.S. regulatory system. Such a regulatory system will be essential not only to achieving the progressive vision of a more just and equitable society; it will also do the heavy practical lifting needed for implementing key elements of a progressive policy agenda, such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and Black Lives Matter movement.

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has driven home some lessons about governance. Those lessons have broader application -- for instance, to climate governance. We can't afford for the federal government to flunk Crisis Management 101 again.

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a bad law and should be repealed. Yet, it has taken on outsized importance given that it provides one of the few vehicles for moving substantive legislation through a hyper-polarized Congress. The upcoming elections are thrusting it back in the spotlight, so let’s talk about the CRA and how opponents of the Trump administration’s assault on public safeguards might put it to its highest and best use.

Environmental justice problems require a willingness to acknowledge privilege and adopt a more inclusive approach. I hope this post might prompt you to reflect, read, and start an uncomfortable conversation or two. We face existential environmental threats almost everywhere around the world, and we won’t succeed in combating them unless we’re all fighting together, for a healthy environment that everyone can enjoy.

A new article in Science magazine that I co-authored with a number of distinguished environmental science professors from around the country dissects the remarkable disregard for science that the Trump administration displayed in its recent dismantling of the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which protected millions of miles of rivers and acres of wetlands from polluters.

Regulatory agencies do not appear to be permeated by overt racism, but structural or institutional racism exists if bias is built into existing institutions. We tend to think of administrative procedures as being neutral between competing points of view, but as the environmental justice movement (EJ) keeps reminding us, this is not necessarily so. It is no secret, for example, that the rulemaking process is dominated by corporate interests, and the same is true of the lobbying that occurs at agencies. Environmental and other public interest groups are hard pressed to match this advocacy. Less noticed is that the fact that there is little or no participation by marginalized communities in rulemaking, although as the pandemic has taught us, our most disadvantaged citizens are the ones that bear the brunt of inadequate government protections. Efforts to reach out and speak to such communities are simply not a regular part of rulemaking practice. True, there is no legal barrier to such participation, but there are considerable structural and economic barriers, which we simply overlook. The administrative process can be more inclusive, and it is time, past time really, to have a discussion how to make it so.