*45th POTUS Donald Trump – Page 85

Under Scott Pruitt, the current head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a large number of Obama-era EPA regulations are under attack. Donald Trump promised to destroy Obama’s environmental protection legacy, simply because it was Obama’s legacy. Scott Pruitt intends to help Trump carry out his promise.

Currently, Scott Pruitt’s EPA has targeted more than 60 environmental regulations from the Obama era for demolition, delay, or suspension. As it does in other areas, such as education, health care, and gun safety policy, the Trump administration demonstrates that it values reversing anything done by the previous administration, as well as saying “no” to anything from “the left,” over the safety and health of its constituents.

Fortunately for Americans, undoing federal regulations is more complicated than simply ordering Scott Pruitt to make it so. The courts don’t look favorably on rolling back regulations simply because one doesn’t like the person who passed them. At least some of Scott Pruitt’s rollbacks have been challenged by the legal system; six have been reversed in court.

In his rush to overturn regulations, Scott Pruitt has often failed to follow many legal protocols, and has neglected to provide adequate supporting materials such as legal and scientific data to justify his proposals. This has resulted in sloppy and poorly crafted legal cases, which aren’t likely to hold up in court. An example is the attempted repeal of the Obama-era emissions law that aimed to reduce auto tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.

“If (it) gets challenged in court, I just don’t see how they provide anything that gives a technical justification to undo the rule,” said James McCargar, a former EPA senior policy analyst.

Although we should be vigilant, it is wise to remember that the laws passed during the Obama administration sometimes required years of careful scientific research and legal due diligence in order to withstand thorough examination in the courts. Similarly, they would take time to dismantle.

“You have to do the hard work of developing a rule that can withstand judicial scrutiny, even though it isn’t sexy,” says David Hayes, director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law. “Pruitt hasn’t been willing to do that, and that’s why he isn’t really having much of an impact.”

No matter how much Scott Pruitt wishes he could take down Obama’s environmental legacy with the swipe of a pen or the tap of a gavel, it also takes time and due diligence to undo laws. Or, in Scott Pruitt’s case, many of his proposed repeals won’t even make it to the “pending” phase before the courts strike them down. Perhaps we can dare to hope that the haphazardness of Scott Pruitt’s attempts will continue to keep our current environmental regulations in place, at least until a new administration.

EPA to Roll Back Obama-era Emissions, Fuel Economy Standards | CBS This Morning [2018-04-03]

Trump’s EPA to Roll Back Obama-era Fuel Economy Standards | Fox News [2018-04-03]

A headline from this past weekend reads “NRA Takes Aim at ‘March for Our Lives Rally, Mocks Gun Violence Survivors.” Did we expect otherwise? Mockery and deflection, along with alarmist tactics, are always available as easy tools for trying to ruffle an opponent or sway popular opinion. The March for Our Lives, however, could, despite the NRA’s attempts to belittle it, prove to be very powerful, and the sentiments it inspired are likely to continue to gain momentum.

The March for Our Lives, a nationwide protest against gun violence, organized by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting, took place last Saturday, March 24, in Washington, D.C., with numerous “sister” marches taking place around the world.

“Not one more,” reads the March for Our Lives mission statement. “We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of a firing assault rifle to save the lives of students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes. Our schools are unsafe. Our children and teachers are dying. We must make it our top priority to save these lives.”

Yes, the March for Our Lives received a large amount of funding and social media support from well-known names such as the Clooneys and others in Hollywood. It does take money to pull off such a large-scale event. Are we as upset about the funding that some of our representatives in Congress get for supporting the NRA?

Yes, the March for Our Lives was well-organized. This, along with the fact that it was funded by some celebrities, has inspired the narrative that the organizers, who were all witnesses to horrific gun violence, were puppets of the “liberal anti-gun lobby.” This idea seems weak, unless one is a conspiracy theorist who also believes that the Parkland shootings were staged by the “anti-gun left” so that people would hold international gun violence demonstrations because they want to “take away all of our guns.”

The NRA and its supporters, in the aftermath of every school shooting and every other mass shooting in the U.S., panic about the possibility of losing their right to possess assault-type weapons, while dismissing or ridiculing those who point out the horror and devastation such weapons have caused, and almost certainly will cause again. That way of prioritization doesn’t seem at all strange to them.

The March for Our Lives took place at a time when Congress had already finished passing legislation for the year. Some will see that as waste. The organization states that “ The mission and focus of March For Our Lives is to demand that a comprehensive and effective bill be immediately brought before Congress to address these gun issues.”

A great deal of the power of the March for Our Lives, however, will come from the fact that it included a large drive to register voters. Many of those newly registered voters are impassioned young people who have been watching their peers work to effect change around gun control laws while the adults appear to have done nothing. All of them will be able to vote in the 2018 mid-term elections. Indeed, the March for Our Lives could have an even larger impact than simply introducing immediate legislation – it could, through votes, replace the climate of the current Congress with one that is no longer controlled by the gun lobby.

Millions Join #MarchForOurLives For Gun Control | The View [2018-03-26]

Gutfeld on Saturday’s Gun Control March | Fox News [2018-03-26]

Category: *45th POTUS Donald Trump

Scott Pruitt’s Proposed Obama-era Rollbacks: Is Time on Our Side?

The March for Our Lives: Where Its Power Lies