Summary

Tori Sheffer

ENGW 1011

Prof. Young

April 4th, 2017

Summary

The first article I read was from The Guardian, and it talked about how President Trump wants to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to the article, “President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA or ‘leave a little bit’,” (Nelsen). President Trump plans on abolishing the EPA and getting rid of all the work the Obama administration did to preserve it. A fortunate thing about the Environmental Protection Agency is that it is not an organization that can be destroyed via a “magic wand,” (Nelson). The EPA is too large of an agency to be taken down overnight. Myron Ebell, head of Trump’s EPA team, said that, “agency’s environmental research, reports and data would not be removed from its website, but climate education material might be changed or “withdrawn”,” (Nelson). Ebell believes the Obama administration did not draw accurate conclusions when arriving at their final decision, and he believes the “mid-term review” would be reopened by the Trump administration. Ebell also states that Trump could cut each state’s funding from the EPA by ten percent. Taking down the EPA, though, is a long term goal of Trump and his staff.

The second article entitled “We knew Trump wanted to gut the EPA. A leaked plan shows how it would be done,” talks more about the specifics of the plan devised by President Trump and his administration staff to reopen the review of the EPA and hopefully find evidence to successfully take it down. According to the second article, there have been documents leaked tracing back to Trump and his administration's plan to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The article reports of an estimated rise in staffing cuts of up to twenty-five percent. The article also touches on the importance of the number of programs within the EPA that are facing the threat of being cut; an estimated fifty programs are awaiting the Trump administration’s decisions. The article mentions a statement made by David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Fund (NRDF). Goldston says that, “while the memo “doesn’t change the overall picture from what we already knew,” the new details demonstrate the Trump administration’s intention “to basically eviscerate the agency. It … is part of an ideological crusade against the EPA and its mission”” (Frostenson). Both articles seem to revolve around the same theme: Trump and his administration plan to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as whole, slowly but surely. The article by Sarah Frostenson also mentions Scott Pruitt’s, EPA Administrator, thoughts on the EPA as a whole. Frostenson sheds light on statements made by Pruitt such as him repeatedly saying, “he wants states to take more ownership of enforcing environmental regulations.” However, he is not willing to give the states the funding they need to do so. In the new budget cut reports, out of the twenty seven percent of funding the EPA grants to the states, Trump plans to make an estimated forty-four percent cut from that portion of money. However, the president’s official budget plan for the agency isn’t scheduled to be reviewed by Congress until sometime this May. Until then, no-one will know for sure what the exact, final decisions are from President Trump and his staff.

The way Trump is trying to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency is like how Mayor Wallen and Avery Taft disregarded the chemical dumping and poor treatment of the environment in Friendswood. The entire government throughout the novel did not pay any attention to Lee, the main character that was trying to stop it. When the reader is first introduced to Mayor Wallen the text says, “Apparently, property value trumped everything,” (Steinke 71).  In the case of the novel, Lee could be considered the Environmental Protection Agency and Avery Taft and Mayor Wallen are President Trump. Trump, Taft, and Wallen all find no relevance about the quality and protection of the earth or whom it may affect, they just care about the money and how much they could “save the U.S” or “save the town” in the case of Friendswood.

Another issue that arose is the fact that without Lee warning the town, there was no chance of anyone else’s health being safe. If  Trump gets rid of the Environmental Protection Agency, the same could happen to the rest of the country not just the made up story in Friendswood, Texas. Like in Lee’s chapter on page 283, because no one is listening there are more and more people developing the illnesses and cancer that comes out of the contaminated water and ground. If President Trump gets rid of our Environmental Protection Agency chances are our whole nation is doomed and heading in that direction.

Though it is unlikely that the EPA will be fully cut, it’s only in the hands of our President and only time will tell if he can actually take away the nation's Environmental Protection but manage to keep our nation clean.