Ignoring threats to environmental health, worker safety issues, economic fair play violations, labor standards infractions, and more is not the way to get the country through the COVID-19 crisis.
Not only does the executive order call for opening up huge swaths of the oceans to oil and gas drilling, it even questions recently designated or expanded national marine sanctuaries and marine monuments.
Despite the fact that no president has ever attempted to revoke a predecessor’s monument designation, Trump wants to hand over the keys to some of America’s most treasured wild places to his fossil fuel allies.
This could mean the evisceration of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as other federal agencies that put public health and environmental protection before polluter profits.
His new order authorizes the creation of a “regulatory reform task force” for every federal agency. Their mission: to seek out and eliminate regulations.
The executive order gives state governors the ability to fast-track a pipeline project by deeming it a “national priority”—such projects would then bypass public participation and environmental review.
