Trump Deepens the Swamp

As if it isn’t enough that within the lifetime of many here today rising temperatures and sea levels will change Texas dramatically now the Trump administration seeks to roll back fuel mileage requirements set to go into effect in the next couple of years. The roll back that Trump appointee Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is pushing will just make matters worse for our children and grandchildren. Pruitt is the former Attorney General of Oklahoma who made a name for himself as the go to guy for oil and gas companies that wanted official help in suing the federal government to relax pollution standards so they could increase profits. Pruitt acted like a lobbyist and put their model letters on official Oklahoma government stationary then signed them in his official capacity as the state’s Attorney General in attempts to effect federal regulatory efforts.

Pruitt sued the Environmental Protection Agency at least 14 times while in office and most of those cases are still in the courts. Unfortunately for our children and grand-children Trump put him in charge of the agency he spent so much times suing and is now using that office to make those lawsuits moot by rolling back the regulations he once sued over. While he’s doing that he’s also making trips around the world on the taxpayers dime to sightsee in places like Rome and Morocco with his own 20 person body guard detail.

Pruitt is now under eleven different investigations for a wide range of financial misdeeds such as having a $43,000 sound proof phone booth built into his office in violation of regulations on how much people in his position are allowed to spend on office renovations. Then there is the investigations into him giving out raises to staffers who were ineligible for them by improperly using funding that belonged to other projects and his lavish travel spending on private planes and use of military aircraft. On top of all that his million dollar 20 member personal body guard detail and questionable security measures which are also under investigation for out of budget spending is all predicated on purported threats of violence but records released through Freedom of Information Act requests show that there were only cases, one of which is someone drew a mustache on a picture of him and another was a threat of violence by a man who has been in prison for years and will continue to be so for years to come.

Pruitt is a lot like Mick Mulvaney, currently director of the Office of Management and Budget, who openly admitted to only listening to those who donated to his campaign. Both continue to serve their corporate and billionaire masters.

While never a Trump appointee long time fixer Michael Cohen seems to be drowning in investigations into sketchy dealing as well. Last week we learned that he’s been billed for back taxes to the tune of $280,000 on his taxi businesses. Earlier this week it was revealed that he’s been collected millions of dollars from the likes of AT&T and drug giant Novartis. That’s on top of the questionable payments from Trump for arranging hush money to porn stars and Playboy playmates.

Candidate Trump claimed he’d be different but when he told Americans he would drain the swamp either he lied or he meant some other swamp.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 11, 2018

Science Fiction and the Consequences of Wrecking Our Environment

Writers of what is often termed literary fiction tell a story about what is called the “human condition”, love and loss, revenge and overcoming adversity are just a few of the themes. Science fiction often does the same thing cloaked in a far off future but sometimes it examines the potential consequences of today’s actions or choices. Over the last 40 years post-environmental collapse stories such as the movies Mad Max, starring Mel Gibson, in 1979 and Waterworld, starring Kevin Costner, in 1995.

Neither movie spends much time on how things got to be the way they are, instead they address what life is like after civilization breaks down. Both movies offer worlds where violence is used to gather and control scarce resources whether it is oil or fresh water and run by warlords with no compassion or sense of decency. Neither movie ends on an especially hopeful note.

If, like me, you accept the scientific consensus that global climate change is occurring and that man’s activities are responsible the vast majority of it then you’re likely to have been frustrated by the slow pace of official action by the Obama administration to stem the tide. Now that Trump is in office the slow pace has been reversed starting with the appointment and confirmation of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt earned his chops as a conservative hero by suing the Environmental Protection Agency to benefit polluters.

In a recent CNBC interview, Pruitt stated that he does not agree that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of the global warming revealed by the temperature records over recent decades. The American Meteorological Society, your favorite TV weatherman is probably a member, wrote him a letter calling out his scientific ignorance and urging him to reconsider his “...stance on the science, and then help lead the nation and the world to consider, first, options for action, and then the course to be followed.”

Trump has taken direct actions that are contrary to the need to get off fossil fuels before it’s too late. Just over a week ago he approved the Keystone XL pipeline which will allow the transmission of dirty, caustic tar sands from Canada to refineries in the United States. Tar sands are much less efficient to process into gasoline, diesel and other petrochemicals due to the contaminants it contains making it much more energy intensive to refine and therefore raising the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere.

Then in what he claims is an effort to restore coal mining jobs Trump signed a bill which reverses the Stream Protection Rule, an Obama era regulation that prohibits coal mine operators from dumping mining waste containing arsenic, mercury and other harmful chemicals into nearby streams. So not only does this bill give wealthy coal mine operators the right to contaminate our water supply it encourages the burning of a fuel that wrecks the climate.

Scientists say that if we don’t get our act together soon and cut our C02 and methane emissions the climate will take an irreversible turn around 2050 and by 2100 human life in much of the world will be unsustainable. You and I won’t live to see that but today's young adults and their children almost certainly will.

Today we resist however we can. In 2018 it is imperative that we vote out Trump’s Republican enablers in Congress and demand strong action in order to save our grandchildren and great grandchildren from life that English philosopher Thomas Hobbes would likely describe as “nasty, brutish and short”.

Published in the Seguin Gazette April 7, 2017