By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the Environmental Destruction Agency, announced last week the delay of rules regulating methane emissions and mentioned he was considering killing the rules altogether. His agency is also trying to get the Supreme Court to reverse their own order to EPA requiring that they regulate greenhouse gases as a threat to human and environmental health. The Trump administration is also opening America’s coastlines to as much fossil fuel drilling as companies might be willing to drill. The Trump team wants to enable the fossil fuel industry to “drill baby drill” and make America as rich as Saudi Arabia. Of course, the Saudi’s are doing all they can to diversify their economy away from oil, and the oil companies are not particularly interested in reducing the price of oil by adding to supplies with more drilling. Extraction industries bring short-term wealth, but unless the capital generated is invested to diversify the economy, a bust will surely follow the boom. Ask West Virginians about that. Still, let’s not confuse economic reality with political baloney.
This Administration seems determined to destroy the American economy and the quality of our air, water and land. It’s a death of a thousand cuts. Withdrawing from the global economy we have long dominated by reducing immigration and increasing tariffs is one dramatic self-inflicted wound. Destroying America’s science edge by cutting funding to our research universities is another. Discouraging international tourism by raising the price of national parks for international visitors and scaring the daylights out of them with ICE raids and degrading questioning at airports and border crossings. Tourism is a big business all over America and particularly near national parks. The money generated by higher park fees will be offset by less money spent in the U.S. by international tourists. The hostility to Canada is already seen in Florida real estate losses and a massive reduction in Canadian tourists throughout America.
Deregulating environmental quality and withdrawing from global environmental diplomacy in a relentless barrage of ill-conceived policy initiatives is ceding America’s global leadership. It’s America alone, and soon America will be far from first. Last week’s retreat from methane regulation was anticipated and not particularly welcomed. As Lisa Friedman and Maxine Joselow observed in the New York Times:
“Methane is considered a “super pollutant” because, while it breaks down more quickly than carbon dioxide, it traps about 80 times as much heat in the atmosphere in the short term. It is responsible for nearly a third of the rise in global temperatures since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Mr. Zeldin has indicated that he is considering fully repealing the regulation, which he has claimed is “throttling the oil and gas industry.” But some in the industry have called for keeping the rule in place, noting that they have already invested in expensive technologies to monitor and capture methane. The American Petroleum Institute, the main trade group for the U.S. oil and gas industry, said it supported the delay… The E.P.A. first announced in July that it planned to delay compliance with the methane rule. The agency finalized the delay late on Wednesday afternoon, continuing a tradition of administrations from both parties announcing environmental news around Thanksgiving.”
The retreat from environmental regulation is presented as a method of promoting economic development. The trade-off between environmental protection and economic development is a false one. It is costly to clean up a toxic environment, and clean air and water are prerequisites of economic well-being and human wellness. While it makes good sense to advocate for smarter and streamlined government rules, eliminating rules adds to the chaos and instability that seems to be a major feature of this administration. Muscular decisiveness is the theme, with little consideration of indirect and unanticipated impacts. From the chainsaw cuts of the Department of Government Efficiency to amateurish ICE raids to poorly planned and unneeded National Guard deployments, this is a government that seems to fire first and aim later. Starving 40 million Americans by suspending food assistance during a government shutdown is perhaps the cruelest example of an administration that is attempting to consolidate its power by pressuring the opposition into submission at every turn. The tragic shooting of two National Guard soldiers by an Afghan immigrant is instantly transformed into an attack on all refugees. Every opportunity to promote national unity is transformed into an opportunity to promote polarization and reinforce “the base.” Opponents are enemies, and there is no room for compromise or even dialogue.
The result is a deep sense of unease and insecurity throughout America. The present seems unstable, and the future looks uncertain. Unless you are very rich, you are facing increased economic pressure. Food costs more, housing costs more, and you are facing higher health, home, and auto insurance bills. The attack on universities is making people question the value of investing time and money on education. The effort to rebuild America’s manufacturing base is taking place when AI and automation are reducing manufacturing jobs. We may build factories, but they won’t add many jobs. The service economy is growing in our brain-based global economy, and education and creativity have long been more highly valued than the skills required to work on an assembly line. Both Trump and Biden share the same misconception about economic power,associating it with smoke-belching factories instead of solar arrays, batteries, software designers, and data farms. It’s a mid-twentieth-century view of economic power but when combined with xenophobia, racism, and tariffs, it adds up to a potential economic catastrophe.
Young people are scared; their parents can’t get past the idea that the future will be worse than the past. A nation built on immigration is slamming the door shut on a major source of the nation’s wealth and greatness. People of color and people speaking Spanish worry that they could be grabbed by ICE and thrown into detention. Science and expertise are questioned despite our dependence on them to navigate the technological complexity of the modern world. The President calls climate change a hoax, and his Health Secretary promotes unfounded conspiracy theories about vaccines. While I sympathize with the impulse to question the arrogance of some experts, I am terrified by the degree of scientific illiteracy now common in the U.S. federal government.
Although my doctorate is in political science, I find myself deliberately trying to turn off the latest political news out of Washington. The relentless attention-seeking performances and social media commentary from the President, Vice President, Secretary of “War”, and the heads of the FBI, Justice, and Homeland Security are non-stop and deeply divisive. The noise and negativity make it difficult to pay attention to national policy and politics. My preference is to focus on family, friends, colleagues, community, and my students and to try my best to find the many good things going on in the world to combat the non-stop nastiness of American national politics. This past Thanksgiving, I gave thanks for all those good things and did my very best to look away from the District of Columbia and Palm Beach, Florida.
I believe that what we are seeing in Washington is out of step with our culture. Americans are generous and not cruel. They are charitable and always willing to lend a helping hand to those in need. They do not like seeing productive members of their community deported and separated from their families. They oppose illegal immigration until they find out that an illegal immigrant has been running their favorite bakery for the past thirty years. They worry about crime but want it to be controlled by their own community, not by the federal government. They don’t like over-regulation, but they want to see their air, land, and water unpolluted. They want to visit and view the unspoiled vistas of federal lands rather than build housing on them. The forces of compromise and consensus have been in retreat for decades, but if we are to maintain what we have and ensure a better life for our children, our only hope is that we regain the ability to listen and learn from each other.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
