I hate having to waste my Gaian Reflections commenting on the slow motion train wreck that is America’s government. But the Environmental “protection” Agency (EpA) is at it again. Last week, EpA proposed a new rule that terminates the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). That means the U.S. wouldn’t even track how many CO2 emissions are being emitted at over 8,000 industrial sites (only oil and gas refining would track emissions due to Clean Air Act rules). To add to the insult, the Trump Administration is working to defund the U.S.’s four GHG monitoring stations around the world (Hawaii, Alaska, America Samoa and the South Pole) and two climate tracking satellites, even though they’re already in orbit and operating. The Administration, of course, argues these are money saving measures, but as a former NASA scientist who led the effort to launch the satellites told the New York Times, shutting down these $800 million satellites would be like buying a car “and then running it into a tree after a few years,” just to save on gas.
Who needs this future space junk anyway? Better to drop it into the ocean, where it will become ocean junk instead… (Artist rendition of the OCO-2 Observatory by John Howard/JPL)
I guess the Administration thinks that if we can’t measure these things, then they can’t be a problem, or at least the U.S. can’t be held accountable for this problem (historically, the U.S. has produced 20% of all GHG emissions). Of course, the rest of the world is playing by a different set of rules—with all but Iran, Libya, Yemen, and now the U.S. having opted-in to the Paris Agreement. So, one way or another, the U.S. is going to be made accountable (even if it is other countries’ satellites that track America’s emissions).
Meanwhile, China is driving full speed ahead on producing the next generation of cleaner technologies, electrifying nine times faster than the rest of the world and receiving the lion’s share of patents in clean energy technologies (75% in 2022), all while the U.S. halts development of renewables and even ceases construction of wind turbines that are nearly complete. So it’s sheer nonsense what the U.S. is doing. But that doesn’t make it any less necessary that you send in your comment and join the public hearing (just like when EpA proposed ending the endangerment finding).
And here’s the silver lining: pressure works. The Department of Energy already disbanded the Climate Working Group (CWG) after being sued by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists. More than 85 scientists submitted a 400+ page report a few weeks back, finding the CWG’s report “biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking.” Then last week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published a 135-page report concluding that “EPA’s 2009 finding that the human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.” And as one law professor noted to the New York Times, failing to respond to any of these scientific reports “creates a legal vulnerability. Courts are going to be very leery if the E.P.A. tries to ignore or reject the findings of the National Academies of Sciences.”
Of course, things will feel like they’re repeating over and over and over when we’re walking through a hall of mirrors. (Image created with Microsoft Designer)
The overwhelming pressure on EpA will have an impact—though the pressure certainly has to be taken up a notch or three. But if you’re not ready to head down to DC and camp out in front of EpA headquarters, I encourage you to at least register for the upcoming public hearing (you have until September 29th) and communicate that it is absolutely essential for the EpA to continue monitoring GHG emissions. And then submit a comment as well (open until November 3rd).
Failing to stop the assault on the tools to even track our GHG emissions will mean at best the U.S. becoming a pariah state, at worst it can derail the global efforts to curb climate change and progress to transition beyond fossil fuels. Not an optimal outcome in either case, and certainly worth fighting to prevent—one public hearing at a time.
