We're On Our Own: California's Environment and a Trump Presidency
Commentary: It’s always a bad sign when the most hopeful argument you can come up with is that maybe the person you’re worried about doesn’t actually mean what they say. It’s a rationalization that props up bad marriages and keeps people in bad jobs, the kind of argument that prompts therapists to offer aphorisms like “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”
During his campaign, Donald Trump made damn sure to tell us who he is.
In a campaign famously devoid of substance on most issues, Trump made specific pledges to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, to rescind the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, and to “cancel the Paris agreement” on limiting greenhouse gases. He vowed to make the United States energy-independent, primarily through increased exploitation of coal, oil, and natural gas reserves, ending the moratorium on coal leasing, and increased drilling and mining on federal lands. He also promised, more vaguely, to end “unwanted” federal programs and “bloated government.”
And in the hours after the election, commentators are raising the question “did he mean it?”
Will the Trump in the White House be the “showman or the negotiator?” Were promises like his pledge to abolish the EPA 21st Century versions of George H.W. Bush’s “Read my lips; no new taxes” — a hyperbolic pledge not intended to be taken seriously? (He did walk that one back.)
Or, more prosaically, could it be more like Barack Obama’s 2008 pledge to close Guantanamo: a promise Obama probably made sincerely but which became the victim of inertia, compromise, and obstructionism?
Unlike Obama, Trump belongs, at least on paper, to the party that will control both Houses of Congress. That Congress may well block Trump on some measures, like paid maternity leave, on which he and they differ. But proposals to undermine or eliminate environmental regulation are right in line with Republican Party thinking. A move to gut the EPA or rescind the Clean Power Plan — the landmark program to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act — will face no opposition from Republicans on the Hill.
There’s also a rose-colored notion floating around that once Trump starts conducting business in the Oval Office, the career experts whose job it is to advise him will rein in his worst impulses. They might tell him, for instance, that the Waters of The United States Rule, which Trump has pledged to rescind, actually limits the EPA’s reach in enforcing the Clean Water Act. Or that snowpack measurements and reservoir levels indicate there actually is a drought in California, and that he shouldn’t order the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop protecting the Delta smelt.
Moderating your views based on feedback from experts is a reasonable practice engaged in by many adult humans. Expecting it from Trump is an act of optimism unsupported by any of the evidence his campaign provides.
Trump did walk back his pledge to abolish the EPA altogether, saying in September that he would “refocus the EPA on its core mission of ensuring clean air, and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans.” That's evidence he might be amenable to backing down on some of his most egregious pledges, given time.
Nonetheless, based on what Trump has told us about himself thus far, we should expect the views of scientists and other experts to be deprecated in policymaking, likely to an unprecedented degree. Trump’s tapping of climate change denier Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to head up his transition team’s work on climate and the EPA offers substantive evidence of that downplaying of science. Founded in 1984 by libertarians who found then-President Ronald Reagan too progressive, the Competitive Enterprise Institute is a strident opponent of any government action to stem greenhouse gas emissions.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
Science denial doesn’t just affect policy on climate change, which Trump famously called a hoax by the Chinese to hinder American competitiveness. Without scientific accuracy, there is no environmental protection. There is no effective enforcement of the Clean Air or Clean Water acts without the expertise of toxicologists. Dams can’t be operated to minimize damage to fisheries without wildlife biologists. Deny science and you deny sensible environmental policy.
In the absence of evidence that Trump will face significant internal or external checks on his environmental policy whims, we can expect that the map of federal environmental policy will be thoroughly rewritten. In addition to efforts to slash the EPA’s ability to regulate pollutants, a Trump administration is exceedingly likely to preside over gutting of the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (which requires environmental review of Federal projects), walking away from the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and rescinding former Presidents’ designation of protected areas.
We can assume, in other words, that despite the best efforts of career agency staff, the federal government will increasingly be AWOL on protecting the environment.
If you’ve watched environmental politics for a few years and you’re getting a sense of déjà vu, there’s a reason for it: previous administrations have also fallen short on making the feds act to protect the environment — though not as thoroughly as is likely with a Trump administration.
If there’s any glimmer of silver lining in all this, it’s that California has plenty of examples of how it can protect the environment when the feds don’t. On many occasions, as previous administrations fell short in their environmental protection obligations, California has taken the lead to set sane environmental policies.
While gridlock on the Hill thwarted federal policymaking on climate change, for instance, California passed landmark greenhouse gas reduction laws including a carbon cap-and-trade program, an increasing commitment to decarbonize the state’s power supply, and a gubernatorial plan to cut vehicle fossil fuel use in half by 2030.
Want another example? As the feds worked to strip Endangered Species Act protection from gray wolves, California listed the wolf as Endangered under California Endangered Species Act.
Another: The National Environmental Policy Act, the nation's farthest-reaching environmental law, requires that federal agencies research and describe the likely environmental impact for a range of different versions of projects they're evaluating. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) does the same, but then also requires the lead agency evaluating the project to choose the least-damaging version.
In arenas from waste reduction to water pollution, California has routinely done the federal government one better at environmental protection, for decades. The state has even signed quasinational agreements with other governments, like its pact to harmonize the cap and trade market with four Canadian provinces, that have made California a major international player in environmental protection.
It’s not that California has a perfect green record. Far from it, as evidenced (for example) by our current governor’s repeated attempts to erode CEQA’s power. The decades-long push to reengineer the Delta for the benefit of agribusiness likewise shows that California’s government can be every bit as venal as the feds.
There are also ways in which a recalcitrant Trump White House could work to undo Golden State moves to protect the planet. Trump could order the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to make it very hard for California utilities not to buy power from coal-fired plants, for example. If California manages to craft a Delta environmental policy that protects wildlife, Trump could undo it all with a phone call to the Bureau of Reclamation. And if Trump really decides to pander to his core constituency, he could support ongoing efforts to privatize federal lands. There are 45 million acres of federal lands in California: almost half the state.
And it would seem some in Sacramento are thinking along these lines already, not just in terms of environmental protection but of human rights as well. In a joint statement released the day after the election, California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León and California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon called the Trump election "clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California," adding:
California has long set an example for other states to follow. And California will defend its people and our progress. We are not going to allow one election to reverse generations of progress at the height of our historic diversity, scientific advancement, economic output, and sense of global responsibility.
But at least we’ve got a model for how to proceed in the absence of the feds. When federal agencies from the Fish and Wildlife Service to the Geological Survey to the Army Corps of Engineers find their environmental missions changed under Trump, it may come in very handy that California has some practice in going it alone.
For the record: this piece was edited after publication to clarify the mechanics of NEPA and CEQA environmental assessments.
Banner: Yosemite Valley. Photo: Edward Stojakovic, some rights reserved
