July 8, 2019 – Note: Today at a White House event President Donald Trump touted his administration’s environmental record while at the same time formally repealing the Clean Power Plan, which placed the first-ever national limits on carbon pollution from power plants.
Statement of Allison Fisher, Outreach Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program
Trump’s touting of his administration’s pristine environmental record is nothing short of nonsense. In fact, Trump has the worst environmental record of any president in history, which is hardly a surprise for an administration that has installed a coal lobbyist as head of the Environmental Protection Agency and an oil and gas lobbyist to run the Department of Interior.
Trump’s repeal of the commonsense Clean Power Plan and Clean Car standards are proof of that.
This repeal will hurt all air-breathing Americans, cost consumers $100 billion and drive our world deeper into the climate catastrophe, but that means nothing to the corporate lobbyists Trump has put at the head of this administration.
These lobbyists have rolled back other vital environmental regulations and climate change measures set by the Obama administration designed to protect public health, all to benefit their former employers and clients. They have consistently placed corporate interests above the interests of the American public.
The climate crisis is the defining issue of our time, and poses an urgent, existential threat to the U.S. and the world. American citizens are fed up with their needs being drowned out by corporate influence in our political system.
We need an administration that is going to be vigilant in protecting the environment and puts the American people before polluter profits. Despite Trump’s claims, his administration’s record shows little regard for the environment and complete submission to corporate interest over the past two and a half years.