Just in the last week in lead up to Earth Day, the federal government furthered its assault on environmental protections by further reducing EPA’s ability to help gather basic scientific information on chemicals and their impact on public health. Previously protected ocean monuments were opened to exploitation. They issued proposed amendments to the Endangered Species Act implementation rules to state that the destruction of rare species habitat is no longer considered a harm. Now, if you are careful in the construction of that dam or clear cutting of that forest to avoid killing the endangered species of choice, you are free to destroy the place where they live or reproduce. In this construct, we still protect endangered species from harm, it just doesn’t do much to, you know, actually help them not be endangered.
The bad acts of this past week must be taken in context with previously announced actions that have frozen funding for environmental restoration projects, halted almost all climate related funding and research, shut down environmental public health research funding and the firing of countless experienced environmental professionals across multiple agencies. While professing support for clean water, clean air and environmental quality, the administration has used Orwellian twisting of language to cover up egregious rollbacks like the redefinition of the term “harm” in the application of the Endangered Species Act. Like many things in life, watch what this crew does, not what it says.
It’s easy to look at all this and dismiss it as simply turning over natural resource exploitation to the environmental movement’s traditional boogeymen, but this is much more than that. And far more sinister. These rollbacks and funding cuts can’t be seen in isolation as just environmental. What is happening here, as pointed out by David Brooks last week, is the accumulation and consolidation of power in the hands of the current occupant of the Oval Office. By methodically cutting off funding for research, instilling fear of retribution to silence opposing voices, compromising the ability of the legal profession to represent clients with views that counter those of the government, and by raising questions about the ability to avoid jail without due process, the administration is methodically shutting down voices that could counter the official pronouncements of what the truth is now deemed to be.
Think about it for a minute. When no one is funded to determine what levels of pollution are acceptable in your air, water or food, there are no organizations to say things are getting worse, and anyone who knows better stays silent out of fear, then the government can tell you any version of their truth or assign blame without fear of contradiction. That’s the end game here, complete control of the narrative.
While the environment took a whack, this really isn’t just about the environment. It is not even really about the policy differences every administration is entitled to pursue. It’s about the extinguishing of the commitment to the freedom of thought and expression and the retaining of the ability to have and share views not blessed by the government. An attack on research, free thinking and expression, tax exempt status, access to representation and adherence to the rule of law and due process, no matter the specific sector being targeted, is an attack on all of us.
We all must resist the reflex to ignore that which doesn’t obviously and directly affect us and realize that unless you speak up for someone else or some other sector there will be no opportunity to do so, and perhaps no one left, when they come for you and your interests.
We either hang together in defense of a knowledge- and science-based lawful world order or we hang separately.
