Trump and Idaho Republicans: No friends of the environment

Since President Donald Trump assumed office, he has commandeered an assault on environmental protections, most often found in the rules and regulations of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which was created by President Richard Nixon in 1972. The New York Times last month cited recent studies at Columbia and Harvard universities and other sources that identified 100 environmental rules that have been reversed or are in the process of being reversed.

His most recent executive order uses the pandemic and its impact on the economy to justify his actions, allowing federal agencies to waive environmental reviews of infrastructure projects during the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. States will find it more difficult to oppose energy infrastructure projects where the quality of water is threatened.

Using the pandemic and its impact on the economy to justify the easing of environmental protections is a clever ploy. The announcements came in the midst of the same news cycle focused on George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police and the protests and riots that ensued. It’s a Trump recipe for how to bury bad news for the environment.

The president changed the rules for how air pollution limits are calculated, thus making it harder to control dangerous pollutants. Those actions follow on the heels of a similar relaxation of environmental protections last month when he weakened rules governing the release of mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants. The easing of rules on mercury represents a direct threat to the nation’s children, with mercury being a known cause of brain damage in developing fetuses and children.

Trump’s action to reduce regulations governing power plant emissions comes at the same time the amount of carbon dioxide emissions responsible for warming the planet reached new highs. Between the dangers of mercury contamination and the increase in carbon dioxide emissions from rolling back environmental rules, it’s difficult to fathom how any American president could allow such a double whammy to an environment clearly at risk as it is.

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, departed from Republican orthodoxy on the weakening of the mercury regulations and wrote a USA Today column urging President Trump not to take such action. Unfortunately, Alexander sits among a distinct minority of Republicans when it comes to protecting the environment, as the chasm between those willing to vote for environmental protections and those intent on making things worse seems to be growing wider in Congress.

Unfortunately, Idahoans will get little or no help from their elected officials who represent us in Washington. Their voting records offer convincing evidence of the solid grip the polluter lobbies have on Republicans. The League of Conservation Voters in our nation’s capital publishes the National Environmental Scorecard, the gold standard for evaluating the voting records of our public officials on environmental legislation. The 2019 results are in, and Idaho’s congressional delegation is in lockstep with President Trump’s agenda to roll back environmental protections.

Sen. Jim Risch scored a 7% in 2019 with a lifetime score of the same. Sen. Mike Crapo scored a 7% with a lifetime score of 6%. The average Senate score was 53%. Rep. Mike Simpson scored a 21% in 2019 with a lifetime score of 9%. Rep. Russ Fulcher scored a 3% in his first term voting. The average House score was 56%.

All four of Idaho’s elected officials in Washington have been nothing but “yes” men to Trump and the anti-environmental lobbies that write the campaign contributions for their reelection. Whether it’s President Trump or his loyal and dutiful Republicans in the Congress, the future of our air, water and land is under attack, and it is as partisan attack as you will find in the congressional roll calls. For Republican House and Senate members, it’s about towing the industry and party line.

For Trump, it seems to be about reversing every last thing President Barack Obama and presidents before him did to safeguard the environment. Earlier this month, he reversed a decision of President Obama creating a marine conservation area off the eastern seaboard that prohibited commercial fishing to save endangered whales and other marine life. Although conservation interests say they will sue in court to return the protections, it’s yet another example of Trump’s single-minded focus on reversing anything he can find with Obama’s name on it and blowing it up.

As far as Idaho’s Republicans in Congress are concerned, they return occasionally to hug a tree and declare acres of Idaho’s forests wilderness and that is a good thing, but it should not distract Idahoans from voting records on the environment that should be embarrassing for public officials who hail from one of the most beautiful states in the nation. The evidence of Idaho’s complicity in bequeathing to our children and grandchildren an environment in severe crisis is overwhelming.

Let the League of Conservation Voters be your guide as you learn more about the voting records of those who represent us in Washington, register your disapproval with their local offices and vote accordingly in November.