• Please read the Announcement concerning missing posts from 10/8/25-10/15/25.
  • This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Big Changes Coming to US Climate & Environment Policy

matchlight said:
I doubt Mr. Trump will dissolve the EPA outright, but I wish he would. A first step might be a moratorium of, say, six months on all new federal environmental regulations. They amount to a very large impediment to economic growth--new jobs.
Click to expand...

Most people are not demsnding that he go that far.

But we do need to reduce the number of employees drastically
 
Mac77 said:
Most people are not demsnding that he go that far.

But we do need to reduce the number of employees drastically
Click to expand...

Maybe not enough people in this country understand just how much federal environmental regulations cost, both in direct spending and in lost productivity, or how little good they have done during the four decades since the major federal environmental laws were enacted.
 
matchlight said:
Maybe not enough people in this country understand just how much federal environmental regulations cost, both in direct spending and in lost productivity, or how little good they have done during the four decades since the major federal environmental laws were enacted.
Click to expand...


The federal regulations are suffocating

No one sees all the damage but everyone is affected in some way
 
matchlight said:
Maybe not enough people in this country understand just how much federal environmental regulations cost, both in direct spending and in lost productivity, or how little good they have done during the four decades since the major federal environmental laws were enacted.
Click to expand...

Many of these regulations are needed. We don't want to go back to polluting rivers and streams, clear cutting with no replanting, etc. It's just over the last few decades, the EPA has gone too far. We need to remove much of the regulations over the last 20-30 years.
 
Lord of Planar said:
Many of these regulations are needed. We don't want to go back to polluting rivers and streams, clear cutting with no replanting, etc. It's just over the last few decades, the EPA has gone too far. We need to remove much of the regulations over the last 20-30 years.
Click to expand...

I did a lot of reading about the major federal environmental laws for a law review article and some other papers I wrote. A few things my research turned up that may interest some people:

The Federal Register, where administrative agencies publish their rules, has grown fantastically over the years. A moderate-sized volume once covered a year; a few years later the corresponding volume was much thicker; a few years after that a thick volume only covered six months; go forward a few more years, and each one covered only a month or two. I haven't sat in the sub-basement of the library poring through the damned dull things recently, but I suspect a week's worth is about the size a big-city phone book by now.

The Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, etc. were not brand-new laws, but rather heavily revised versions of earlier ones. As I remember, there was a Clean Water Act of 1948, for example, twenty-plus years before the one we know now. And the Rivers and Harbors Act, enacted before 1900, had been doing a pretty good job for sixty years and more.

States had their own environmental laws, and in some states, especially ones where tourism made it important to keep up the state's natural beauty, they were quite effective. In others, the residents had decided industry and jobs were more valuable to them than pristine nature. Only where a state shared a navigable waterway with a neighboring state, or where its activities damaged another state in some way, did its protection of the environment become a legitimate federal issue. And yet the federal environmental laws prohibit all sorts of actions that can only be claimed to affect even as single other state by the wildest stretch of the imagination.

I have more to add to the list, but that's it for tonight. Off to the land of Nod.
 
Ockham said:
Ahh... the tried and true "Republicans want dirty water and pollution" meme, because only Democrats keep our National Parks and stream's clean. :lamo
Click to expand...

Pretty much. The Republican Party, as a national entity, has pretty much proven over the last 20 years that it gives nary a **** about the environment. Sorry, but facts are facts.
 
A good news article by Nature:

The ultimate experiment: How Trump will handle science


Some scientists have expressed fear about how Trump’s presidency will affect research in the United States. The president-elect has questioned the science underlying climate change and has linked autism to childhood vaccinations; his vice-president, Indiana governor Mike Pence, does not believe in evolution or that human activities have caused climate change. Still, some science advocates caution against a rush to judgement about how the Trump administration will approach science and research issues.
​


Climate change

If Trump keeps his promises, the United States will reverse course on global warming. The president-elect has blasted the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and said that he will repeal Obama’s climate regulations. And Myron Ebell, a prominent climate sceptic who directs energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, is leading Trump’s transition team for the EPA.
​


But it would be easy enough for the Trump administration to just revoke the Clean Power Plan on its own, Holmstead says. The administration could also revise a regulation that essentially bans the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they are equipped to capture and bury a portion of their carbon emissions. And Trump could repeal the moratorium on new federal coal leases with the stroke of a pen.
​

The Editorial I found it from:

Reality must trump rhetoric after US election shock


During his campaign, Trump advocated energy independence for the United States. But he has railed against subsidies for solar and wind power, and promised to tear up regulations that aim to trim the expansion and continuation of fossil-fuel use.
​


There are nine more weeks until Trump swears to faithfully execute the office of president. As he does so, the world can only hope that Trump will respect evidence and expert advice. He has proved that he can stand up to withering criticism, from Democrats and Republicans alike. But can he change his mind in the face of hard facts? This is a true test for any leader, and Trump’s legacy may well ride on the answer.
​
 
And a Nature World View column:

Science and innovation policies for Donald Trump


Trump is publicly sceptical about the seriousness of climate change, and is committed to the coal industry. Yet climate change offers him the opportunity to steal one of the Democrats’ key issues while advancing the nation’s economic interests and energy security. As a supporter of nuclear energy, he could increase funding for research, development and demonstration of next-generation reactors — on which the United States lags far behind China and Russia — and reopen the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain waste-storage facility.

Meanwhile, Trump could reignite efforts to develop coal plants that co-fire biomass and capture carbon dioxide — thus protecting jobs, creating economic opportunities for rural communities that provide fuels such as timber residues, and producing meaningful emissions reductions. Power companies could in turn sell desperately needed CO2 to the oil industry for advanced oil recovery — stimulating private-sector investment in infrastructure for CO2 transport, while returning more CO2 to the ground. Trump would barely have to soften his stance — just enough to acknowledge the pragmatism in measures that both benefit the economy and reduce the threat posed by greenhouse gases.
​
 
Lord of Planar said:
A good news article by Nature:

The ultimate experiment: How Trump will handle science


Some scientists have expressed fear about how Trump’s presidency will affect research in the United States. The president-elect has questioned the science underlying climate change and has linked autism to childhood vaccinations; his vice-president, Indiana governor Mike Pence, does not believe in evolution or that human activities have caused climate change. Still, some science advocates caution against a rush to judgement about how the Trump administration will approach science and research issues.
​


Climate change

If Trump keeps his promises, the United States will reverse course on global warming. The president-elect has blasted the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and said that he will repeal Obama’s climate regulations. And Myron Ebell, a prominent climate sceptic who directs energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, is leading Trump’s transition team for the EPA.
​


But it would be easy enough for the Trump administration to just revoke the Clean Power Plan on its own, Holmstead says. The administration could also revise a regulation that essentially bans the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they are equipped to capture and bury a portion of their carbon emissions. And Trump could repeal the moratorium on new federal coal leases with the stroke of a pen.
​

The Editorial I found it from:

Reality must trump rhetoric after US election shock


During his campaign, Trump advocated energy independence for the United States. But he has railed against subsidies for solar and wind power, and promised to tear up regulations that aim to trim the expansion and continuation of fossil-fuel use.
​


There are nine more weeks until Trump swears to faithfully execute the office of president. As he does so, the world can only hope that Trump will respect evidence and expert advice. He has proved that he can stand up to withering criticism, from Democrats and Republicans alike. But can he change his mind in the face of hard facts? This is a true test for any leader, and Trump’s legacy may well ride on the answer.
​
Click to expand...

Climate change is real.

And natural.

The earths climate has always changed and always will change

Its the claim of man-made global warming that is unproven
 
Kobie said:
Pretty much. The Republican Party, as a national entity, has pretty much proven over the last 20 years that it gives nary a **** about the environment. Sorry, but facts are facts.
Click to expand...

I see you listen to the pundits instead of actual actions
 
Kobie said:
Pretty much. The Republican Party, as a national entity, has pretty much proven over the last 20 years that it gives nary a **** about the environment. Sorry, but facts are facts.
Click to expand...

So factually, how many national parks have been closed and turned into something else, or sold to big business under Republican Presidents?
 
[h=2]Marrakech: In the end, there is nothing left but spin, and all the momentum that $28 billion dollars a week can buy[/h]
[h=3]Here’s the washup on the end of yet another UN COP junket. Marrakech, struck by panic, ends with a whimper, did anyone notice?[/h]
“My only worry is the money.”
​
elephant-hansm-1-250.jpg
Way back in that other era before the US election, delegates to the latest two-week-Olympic-junket with 200 nations in Morocco knew things could go badly. On November 4, Reuters said there was “…widespread unease”. But it wasn’t about the climate, it was “about finance …”

One delegate accidentally summed it up:
“My only worry is the money,” said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of Democratic Republic of Congo, who heads a group of the 48 least developed nations. “It’s worrying when you know that Trump is a climate change sceptic,” he told Reuters.
Who cares about the weather, eh? The rest of the article is about the type of cash cows at stake.
Then the unthinkable happened: Trump. The panic began. Things were thrown into “disarray”. Everything was “imperiled”:
People were walking around looking pretty shellshocked,” says Dr Bill Hare, perched on a chair in the cavernous media tent at the United Nations climate talks in Morocco. “If you hugged an American there was a good chance they’d burst into tears.”
– An emotional ride, The Guardian.​
Michael Kile documents some of the derailing of this gravy train:
“A third of the people here are walking around like zombies, like the walking dead, not sure what to do,” said UC Berkeley Professor Daniel Kammen, speaking from Morocco. Many believe the honeymoon is over.
[h=3]
gravy-train-1a-web.jpg
[/h]
 
Jack Hays said:
[h=1]“The Trump-Climate Freakout… ‘I’m going to die from climate change!'”[/h]Guest post by David Middleton WARNING: This post is very sarcastic! by OREN CASS November 22, 2016 4:00 AM He will reverse a policy that isn’t working anyway. Given the emotional reactions that Donald Trump and climate change each trigger separately, they offer an especially combustible combination. Paul Krugman worries that Trump’s election “may have…
Continue reading →
Click to expand...

“
You are part of the problem,” he continued, blaming Brazile for clearing the path for Trump’s victory by siding with Clinton early on. “You and your friends will die of old age and I’m going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy.”
Click to expand...

Its freaky how stupid the best and brightest in lib la la land can be

This young DNC staffer has been brainwashed by the man-made-global-warming hoaxsters to believe the big lie and he actually thinks hes going to die because of global warming

Incredible
 
Last edited:
Mac77 said:
“

Its freaky how stupid the best and brightest in lib la la land can be

Yjis young staffer has been brainwashed by the man-made-global-warming hoaxsters to believe the big lie and he actually thinks hes going to die because of global warming

Incredible
Click to expand...

We live in strange times.
 
Mac77 said:
This is good news

Under trump we are not going to be wasting money pursuing the man-made-global-warming hoax but rather doing someing useful like exploring space.

Its a big step up from obama's mission for NASA of making it a muslim outreach program

NASA Chief Bolden's Muslim Remark to Al-Jazeera Causes Stir
Click to expand...

I only skimmed over your link, but yes. We have NOAA and other organizations to do climate research. NASA has a different mission, and shouldn't be worrying about climate.
 
Threegoofs said:
Whatever you have to tell yourself....
Click to expand...

You are the one who started the personal comments

When will you learn that people who live in glass houses...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom