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Hidden between Christmas and New Years, Trump Admin Granted Anti-Environment Favors to Koch Brothers, Ivanka's friend, and Fracking Firms
The following three moves were rolled out purposely around Chrstimas to avoid media coverage. They are blatently unpopular actions that harm our environment for the unjust benefit of corporations and people who donate immensely to Trump and Republicans. The Washington Post article linked below lists seven others the disgraceful administration slid through as well.
In the week that followed [the tax bill], Trump kept giving his members new reasons to celebrate. While cable news fixated on how much he was golfing.... his political appointees back in Washington worked overtime to deconstruct the administrative state, eviscerate several of Barack Obama’s signature achievements and roll back significant environmental protections.
Here's what you may have missed while you enjoyed the holidays with family:
1. Overturned key regulations on fracking: “On the last business day of the year, the Interior Department rescinded a 2015 Obama administration rule that would have set new environmental limitations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public lands,” Chris Mooney reported Friday. “The regulation from the Bureau of Land Management, which had been opposed by the oil and gas industry and tied up in court, would have tightened standards for well construction and wastewater management, required the disclosure of the chemicals contained in fracking fluids, and probably driven up the cost for many fracking activities.”
2. Ended policy to protect migrating birds:
On the Friday before Christmas, the Interior Department quietly rolled back an Obama-era policy aimed at protecting migratory birds by announcing that oil, gas, wind and solar operators who accidentally kill birds will no longer be prosecuted. On the Friday before Christmas, the Interior Department quietly rolled back an Obama-era policy aimed at protecting migratory birds by announcing that oil, gas, wind and solar operators who accidentally kill birds will no longer be prosecuted. Without the risk of fines for killing birds, energy exploration businesses are certain to spend less on precautionary measures and technologies that might prevent unnecessary deaths.
3. Reinstated mining leases in Minnesota for a Chilean mining firm owed by Ivanka Trump’s landlord:
On the Friday before Christmas, though, the Interior Department moved to renew expired leases for a copper and nickel mining operation on the border of Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northern Minnesota, reversing a decision that was reached by the Obama administration after careful deliberation. This directly benefits the Chilean mining firm owned by billionaire Andrónico Luksic, who rents a six-bedroom mansion to the first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, in the posh Kalorama neighborhood of Washington. The Interior Department didn’t even put out a release to let reporters know the news. They also didn’t give a heads up to Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D), who opposes the mines. Instead, Juliet reports, aides from Interior notified Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt (R), who then broke the story. “This shameful reversal by the Trump Administration shows that big corporate money and special interest influence now rule again in Republican-controlled Washington,” Dayton said in a statement. “We will have to uncover why the financial interests of a large Chilean corporation, with a terrible environmental record, has trumped the need to protect Minnesota’s priceless [crown jewel.]”
This all happened. It was not reported on at all. We need to note it, share it, and use it as fuel to stay engaged for 2018 elections and beyond.
The tax cut bill wasn’t the only Christmas gift that Trump gave billionaires and big businesses.
Trump campaigned like a populist. Now more than ever, he’s governing like a plutocrat.