Dumping Coal Waste Into Waterways Is NOTHING Compared To What's Coming

Trump promised during the presidential contest that he would "cancel" the Paris accord on global warming, the 194-nation agreement that all countries -- rich and poor, developed and undeveloped -- will take steps to reduce greenhouse gases. Since the Paris accord was signed, we have experienced two record-setting hot summers and now an unprecedented warm winter, so the urgency to stop the global warmup has become more intense.

Enter Trump. Russia's favorite president has already been peeing on environmental regs. According to leaked budget documents, the president intends to kill off nearly two dozen E.P.A. programs, including the Obama-era Clean Power Program, climate partnership programs with local governments, Energy Star grants to encourage efficiency research in consumer products and climate-change research. Those would be part of a broader Trump budget submission that would cut the EPA’s funding by 25 percent, to around $6.1 billion from $8.2 billion, and its staff by 20 percent.

As Steve Bannon suggested at CPAC, why else would Trump have appointed Scott Pruitt EPA administrator except to dismantle the EPA and environmental protections.

According to the reporting of Coral Davenport (with good sources inside the Trump White House),

Next week, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to start the lengthy legal process of unwinding Mr. Obama’s E.P.A. regulations for cutting greenhouse pollution from coal-fired power plants. Those regulations are the linchpin of the last administration’s program to meet the nation’s obligations to reduce climate emissions under the Paris agreement.

Davenport also reports that a power struggle has erupted in the White House between Steve Bannon, who published scores of articles bashing climate change as a hoax when he ran Breitbart, and Ivanka Trump, who thinks it would be politically boneheaded to withdraw the US from the Paris accords. According to Davenport, Rex Tillerson, the Exxon man, has formed an alliance with Ivanka in opposing Bannon. Tillerson sees withdrawal from the Paris agreement as potentially hurting the US's reputation (not to mention its honesty and commitment to the world's welfare) among other nations.

When the ex-CEO of Exxon is our best hope for saving the planet, you know we're in #TrumpNation.