Still feeling whiplash from the past four years? This table explains the actions President Biden has taken to rollback Trump Administration edicts that adversely impacted your air, water, and health in his first few days in office.
|
Metric |
Trump |
Biden |
Impact
for Consumers |
|
Fuel Efficiency |
Reduced fuel efficiency standards to 40 MPG |
Reinstates fuel efficiency standards for cars to 54 MPG by
2025, overrules Trump |
Greater fuel efficiency means we pay less at the pump and
less CO2 go into the air; additional cost to car buyers is nominal |
|
Auto Emission Standards: California has had some of the
strictest auto emissions standards, for 30 years, which manufacturers must
meet |
Attempted to circumvent the CA stricter emissions rules
and overrule states rights to adopt the loser federal standards of the Trump
Administration, even though many automakers objected |
The court case against California standards, which are
adopted by 15 states and the DOC, will be dropped |
Good news for people living in: California, Colorado, Connecticut,
Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the
District of Columbia. |
|
Sale of Alaska Wilderness Oil Leases |
Approved for January 2, 2021, subject to a 30-day comment
period, but Trump tried to accelerate this to 16-days to avoid Biden’s
reversal |
Not in favor of drilling in the pristine and fragile Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, leases will not be approved |
There is a glut of oil already in the US, this is just an
industry grab, at the expense of the environment, no leases are better for
ANWR. |
|
Government Accountability |
Trump’s Cabinet has rewritten myriad rules in government
agencies, including the EPA. Trump created the onerous Cost/Benefit
methodology which diminishes public health impacts and prioritizes business
considerations for adopting environmental rules. |
Biden has put a freeze on implementation of any Trump
rules until further analysis. Aims to prevent the midnight regulatory changes
pushed by a lame duck president. |
The scientific community was uniformly opposed to the Trump
cabinet ignoring and weakening scientific findings to create rules favorable
for a few. This will prevent unhealthy changes from taking effect and
adversely impacting public health through ground water, air, and product
contaminants. |
Happy New
Year!
This posting was written by Roberta Winter, author,
independent journalist, and healthcare advocate, who has continuously published
this column since November 2007.
