Free Republic

How “green policies” are burning the Golden State to a crisp. As huge wildfires continued to devour forests, homes, and businesses across California over the weekend, President Trump lashed out at the destructive, deadly policies long pushed by environmentalists that set the stage for the Golden State’s now-routine fiery catastrophes. “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” President Trump tweeted Nov. 10 at 3:08 a.m. “Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy...

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell 2.7 percent from 2016 levels, according to the EPA. Emissions on a per-capita basis hit a 67-year low last year, federal data shows, and supporters are touting EPA’s data as proof Trump’s agenda is working. EPA’s new data comes on news that, globally, greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise to historic highs by the end of the year, despite nearly 200 countries signing the Paris climate accord.

WASHINGTON: Something should have been done by previous administrations, but they ignored it. The problem of plastic in our oceans has been left to fester to unmanageable effect. Saying that over eight millions tons of garbage, plastic, is dumped into our oceans, the President says Save our Seas is an effort to clean the plastic out. No other political leader, not in the U.S. or any other country, is willing to stand up for the oceans. The Save Our Seas Act, an important bill which reauthorizes and amends the Marine Debris Act, will act to promote international action to reduce...

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been hounded lately by allegations of rich spending and poor judgment. While he could have detonated himself during recent congressional-oversight hearings, the former Oklahoma prosecutor seems to have survived those tests. Nonetheless, EPA’s inspector general, the Government Accountability Office, and various congressional panels continue to probe Pruitt’s official conduct. While Pruitt has plenty for which to answer, on at least three key counts, he seems to be cleaner than his critics claim. Pruitt’s foes have attacked him for allocating too much on bodyguards. Senator Tom Udall (D - New Mexico) slammed Pruitt for “taking 30...

VIENNA (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging President Donald Trump to join in efforts to promote green energy, saying he would have "a lot of victories." The former California governor spoke Tuesday at the R20 Austrian World Summit, an offshoot of a Schwarzenegger climate change initiative. Schwarzenegger has sparred with Trump, who last year announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Schwarzenegger said: "Those of you who resist because you can't imagine success without fossil fuels: we ask you to join us. Everyone. Also you, President Trump: Join us." He added: "You said ... you want to have...

Although President Donald Trump might be skeptical of climate change (or global warming, if you prefer), activists in Finland hope to use the commander-in-chief's likeness to draw awareness to the issue. They plan to carve Trump's image into the side of an Arctic glacier. The group, called Melting Ice, is looking to raise 400,00 Euros (about $476,988) to fund "Project Trumpmore," and create the roughly 115 foot-tall ice sculpture in a glacier that is melting. "We don't simply want to build a monument, we want the project to be bigger and raise the topic of climate change on a broader...

Earlier this month, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt denied having any conflicts of interest with Steven Hart, the lobbyist who’s home he has been renting a room in for the generous rate of $50 a day. “Mr. Hart has no client that has business before this agency,” Pruitt said. But new disclosures reveal that the lobbyist met directly with Pruitt at EPA headquarters in July of 2017. Hart’s firm Williams & Jensen has represented Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, for more than a decade and continued to lobby EPA on their behalf in early 2018. In February,...

The Trump administration has removed mentions of climate change from federal government websites, yet the air and water continue to warm and sea levels keep rising. Data on climate change is buried on those sites where it used to be displayed prominently, and still glaciers melt and animals appear where they weren’t before. No, climate change doesn’t stop just because you ignore it — like tooth decay or that weird rattle in your car, it only gets worse, until you can’t possibly look the other way any longer. In this case, however, the stakes are much higher than a blown...

President Trump celebrated Earth Day on Sunday with a message promoting how a “healthy environment and a strong economy go hand in hand.” “We know that it is impossible for humans to flourish without clean air, land, and water. We also know that a strong, market-driven economy is essential to protecting these resources,” the president said in his message. “For this reason, my administration is dedicated to removing unnecessary and harmful regulations that restrain economic growth and make it more difficult for local communities to prosper and to choose the best solutions for their environment. “Already, we are making great...

An on-again, off-again effort to restrict harmful methane emissions on federal lands is off — again. A federal judge in Wyoming has halted the clean-air rule indefinitely. Judge Scott Skavdahl says it "makes little sense" to force oil and gas companies to comply with the Obama-era rule when the Trump administration has moved to roll back the 2016 regulation. Skavdahl says enforcing the rule "provides minimal public benefit" while imposing potentially significant costs on industry. Wednesday's ruling is the latest in a back-and-forth series of court decisions and administrative actions as the Trump administration tries to weaken or delay a...

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Monday formally scrapped a key piece of the Obama administration’s fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light-duty trucks, throwing the future of the program into doubt. In a statement, Mr. Pruitt said the program, known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE standards, fell victim to politics during the final days of the Obama administration. He said his predecessors at the EPA rushed through rules governing fuel economy for model years 2022 through 2025, and that those rules simply aren’t realistic. “The Obama Administration’s determination was wrong,” he said. “Obama’s EPA cut the midterm evaluation...

Climate researchers are warning that a large chunk of the globe could become a desert if the goals of the Paris climate change accord are not met. The findings published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change show that more than 25 percent of the world's population will live in a perpetual state of drought and growing desertification if the Earth's temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius by 2050. The report says the solution is to prevent global warming from rising above 1.5 degrees C, which the researchers say would significantly reduce the number of regions of the world affected...

Conservationists who have a visceral emotional reaction to words like “carbon emissions” and “TransCanada” and “Rick Perry” rarely find themselves closely allied with President Trump’s opinions on the proper stewardship of the planet. Trump has consistently dismantled Obama-era environmental protections, using the common refrain that his administration desires to “better balance conservation strategies and policies with the equally legitimate need of creating jobs for hard-working American families.” So, some who’ve criticized Trump might have done a double take when they read one of his tweets Friday morning. The message effectively put the brakes on a new administration policy that would...

US President Donald Trump's pullout from the Paris Agreement will push up global temperatures nearly half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, according to a report released Wednesday at UN climate talks in Bonn. If all countries—including the United States—honour carbon-cutting pledges under the 196-nation treaty, the world would see 2.8 C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) research group had previously calculated. That is not nearly good enough to avoid climate catastrophe, scientists say. The Paris pact, adopted in 2015, calls for capping the rise at "well below" 2 C, and even...

What do severe cuts to core environmental protections and New Jersey's middle class losing federal tax deductions for local property and state income taxes have in common? What's the common thread between climate programs and Obamacare? These key protections and programs are on the chopping block to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans if the Trump administration and their allies in Congress have their way. Experts with scientific certainty say damage from regular flooding and extreme weather like Harvey, Irma, Irene and Maria will occur with increasing severity and frequency due to human-caused climate change....

President Donald Trump will nominate a climate change skeptic with ties to the fossil fuel industry to serve as a top environmental adviser. The White House on Thursday announced the selection of Kathleen Hartnett White of Texas to serve as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. White served under former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now Trump's energy secretary, for six years on a commission overseeing the state environmental agency. White was fiercely critical of what she called the Obama administration's "imperial EPA" and pushed back against stricter limits on air and water pollution. She is a senior fellow at...

President Donald Trump is moving toward allowing energy exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for the first time in several decades, according to a report Friday from The Washington Post. Interior Department officials are modifying decades-old regulations that have traditionally prevented the agency from conducting seismic studies seen as the first step towards drilling, the report notes. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director James W. Kurth told the agency’s Alaska regional director to strike constraints on a rule that allowed exploratory drilling between 1984 and 1986, the last time drilling was allowed in the ANWR, according to a...

There's a lot of noise surrounding a WSJ story today saying the Trump administration has changed its mind on the Paris climate accord and isn't pulling out. The White House responded that there has been "no change" in the position on Paris and that the U.S. is "withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favorable to our country."Trump's position announced in June was the U.S. is bailing but willing to renegotiate. Remember it actually takes several years to formally withdraw.Our thought bubble: Nobody has really taken this "renegotiation" idea especially seriously. Why people are surprised today is...

All three networks on Tuesday worried about Donald Trump’s “lack of curiosity” in the wake of a “startling” new climate change report. After discussing a draft report leaked to the New York Times, Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos sneered, “No word yet on whether they will suppress, dismiss, or endorse the report.” On CBS This Morning, Major Garrett offered a lecture: “The lack of comment from officials here and from those at some of the relevant federal agencies about this report's startling conclusions suggest not just skepticism but, at least initially, a lack of curiosity.” CBS Freaks Over Climate Study,...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Tuesday that she sees no reason the Trump administration wouldn’t accept the results of a new federal report on the effects of climate change. “I haven’t seen the report, but I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t,” the former S.C. governor told the “Today Show” Tuesday morning. While President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord earlier this year, Haley said the country remains committed to combating the warming climate. “Just because we pulled out of the Paris accord doesn’t mean we don’t believe in climate...