Trump Just Gave The Oil Industry A $480M Handout By Allowing Them To Freely Pollute The Air

Last updated on September 14th, 2018 at 03:53 am

The Trump administration took another step toward a dirtier environment on Monday, this time rolling back an Obama era policy that required companies to “monitor and repair methane leaks.”

According to The New York Times, this makes the “third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change” and it will make it “significantly easier” for the energy industry to pollute the air.

The Times notes that the rollback “would save the oil and gas industry $484 million” by 2025.

More from the report:

The Environmental Protection Agency, perhaps as soon as this week, plans to make public a proposal to weaken an Obama-era requirement that companies monitor and repair methane leaks, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. In a related move, the Interior Department is also expected in coming days to release its final version of a draft rule, proposed in February, that essentially repeals a restriction on the intentional venting and “flaring,” or burning, of methane from drilling operations.

The new rules follow two regulatory rollbacks this year that, taken together, represent the foundation of the United States’ effort to rein in global warming. In July, the E.P.A. proposed weakening a rule on carbon dioxide pollution from vehicle tailpipes. And in August, the agency proposed replacing the rule on carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants with a weaker one that would allow far more global-warming emissions to flow unchecked from the nation’s smokestacks.

Trump is a shameless puppet of the energy sector

In the early stages of Donald Trump‘s presidential bid, he pledged to fund his own campaign. He claimed this would be proof that he wouldn’t be influenced by any outside groups. Once that myth was busted and it was clear that he was not funding his own campaign, he continued to promise that no special interests would run his presidency.

Since taking office, though, he has shown that – particularly on environmental issues – he is happy to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the planet.

Whether it’s pulling out the Paris climate accord (the only country in the world to do so), allowing toxic sludge to be dumped in our waterways or relaxing life-saving coal pollution regulations, there is no step this president is unwilling to take to make the environment dirtier as long as it pleases his donors and undoes an Obama era rule.

In the perfect storm of unprecedented scandal and incompetence, it’s easy to forget that Donald Trump is still making policy decisions. Monday gave the country a reminder of just how damaging he has been on that front, too.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.

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