Background on Environment

Environment topics in the 2020 election cycle:

Drinking Water
• Flint 6 years later: While years have passed and tests show the water quality in most areas is now acceptable to drink, many people are scared to drink it. The city has inspected more than 25,000 service lines and has replaced 85% of the pipes. (Click On Detroit)
• Flint accountability: Ten months ago, a bombshell announcement that all criminal charges in the Flint Water investigation dropped. The announcement came shortly after the attorney general's new Flint water investigative team took over. People who live in Flint are still waiting for someone to be held accountable for the man-made disaster that poisoned their city. (ABC-12)
• Environmental prosecution: A new report finds that criminal prosecutions for polluting the environment in violation of the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act have dropped to their lowest levels in decades under the Trump administration. In the first two years of the Trump administration, criminal prosecutions for violations of the Clean Water Act dropped 70%. Similarly, prosecutions for violations of the Clean Air Act dropped 50% in the first two years since Trump took office. (EcoWatch)

• TRUMP: Partner with environmentalists when undertaking projects (Apr 2010)
• BIDEN: Will bring polluting country leaders to US to find solutions (Feb 2020)
• PENCE: Stop considering manure as pollutant or hazardous (Sep 2011)
• HARRIS: Prosecuted polluters for illegal dumping and air pollution (Aug 2017)
• Socialist Party nominee Gloria LA RIVA: Environmental racism pollutes our neighborhoods (Feb 2016)

Plastic Waste
• Plastic straws: Plastic straws are really bad for the ocean. It's estimated that we use over 500 million every day in America, and most of those end up in our oceans, polluting the water and killing marine life. If we don't act now, by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish (by weight). (Strawless Ocean)
• Microplastics: Because they're made of relatively thin material, straws break down into smaller plastic particles known as microplastics more quickly. Plastic has become so common in oceans that it's being found in large quantities in the bellies of sea birds, whales, and even fish sold at supermarkets. (Eater.com)
• Plastic Garbage Patch: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in oceans, seas, and other large bodies of water. These patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called microplastics. (National Geographic)
• Garbage Patch Cleanup:
  Myth #1: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be seen from space.
  Myth #2: It's twice the size of Texas.
  Myth #3: Ocean cleanups can solve the garbage patch problem.
  Because of the complex forces of nature at work and the miniscule size of microplastics, ocean cleanups are not a feasible solution. According to NOAA, it would take 67 ships an entire year to clean up less than 1% of the North Pacific Ocean. (Oceana.org)

• TRUMP: Don't micromanage every rain puddle and drainage ditch (Sep 2019)
• BIDEN: Pay to put farmland in land banks, for open space & carbon (Sep 2020)
• HARRIS: Ban plastic straws & bags; limit single-use plastic (Sep 2019)
• News on Plastic Waste (Candidates' recent excerpts)

Transportation & Mass Transit
• Cash for Clunkers: Cash for Clunkers was a U.S. government program that provided financial incentives to car owners to trade in their old, less fuel-efficient vehicles and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. [Ed.: It ran July and August 2009] (Investopedia)
• PRO-Cash for Clunkers: Supporters of the program have argued that the program was a success because it provided a stimulus to the economy and removed over 677,000 fuel-inefficient cars from the road.
• ANTI-Cash for Clunkers: Analysts partly blamed the program for a shortage of used vehicles. While the program was partly intended as a stimulus for domestic auto manufacturers, only about 49% of new vehicles purchased were manufactured in the U.S.
• Amtrak Stimulus: Amtrak submitted a letter to Congress formalizing our ongoing request for up to $4.857 billion this fiscal year for Amtrak and our partners. Additionally, as Congress considers programs for stimulating the economy, Amtrak has identified $5.193 billion in additional investments as part of an economic recovery proposal to help the nation recover from the impacts of the pandemic, for a total federal investment of $10.050 billion. (Amtrak)
• Amtrak Ridership: Ridership - Amtrak 2013-2019," by E. Mazareanu, Nov 20, 2019 In the fiscal year of 2019, Amtrak transported some 32.5 million passengers in North America. (Statista)

• TRUMP: (Sep 2019)
• BIDEN: Voted NO on restoring $550M in funding for Amtrak for 2007 (Mar 2006)
• PENCE: Voted NO on $9.7B for Amtrak improvements and operations (Jun 2008)
• HARRIS: All electric cars and school buses by 2045 (Sep 2019)
• PENCE: Voted NO on $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program (Jul 2009)
• News on Mass Transit (Candidates' recent excerpts)
• Click for more on Transportation in the Technology/Infrastructure background page.

WOTUS
• WOTUS: In June 2014, the EPA released a proposed rule (known as Waters of the United States, or WOTUS) in order to describe which waters can be federally regulated under the Clean Water Act. (ALCC)
• PRO_WOTUS: WOTUS covers two million miles of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands. These waterways provide drinking water for one third of Americans. The fossil fuel industry has stood beside farmers and property developers – and Republicans – in opposing the rule, which is aimed at holding polluters of water accountable. (Greenpeace)
• ANTI-WOTUS: The 2015 rule grants the federal government regulatory control over virtually any waters – and many land areas that only temporarily hold water – assuming a scope of authority Congress never authorized. It effectively eliminates any constraints the term "navigable" previously imposed on the agencies' Clean Water Act jurisdiction, and few, if any, waters would fall outside of federal control. (Farm Bureau)
• Repealing WOTUS: The EPA suspended the Obama rule. The agency revealed its replacement. "For the first time, we are clearly defining the difference between federally protected waterways and state protected waterways," said EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler. (Vox.com)

• TRUMP: WOTUS 2018: limited definition of protected waterways (Dec 2018)
• BIDEN: WOTUS: clean water rules create rural jobs (Sep 2020)
• PENCE: Our water and air are cleaner than ever; proud of our record (Oct 2020)
• HARRIS: Declare drinking water emergency on Day One (Sep 2019)
• Constitution Party Nominee Don BLANKENSHIP: Repeal wetlands protection & Endangered Species Act (May 2020)

Amazon rainforest
• Amazon fires : Fires in Brazil's Amazon increased 13% in the first nine months of 2020 compared with a year ago, as the rainforest region experiences its worst rash of blazes in a decade. Satellites in September recorded 32,017 hotspots in the world's largest rainforest, a 61% rise from the same month in 2019. (The Guardian)
• Biodiversity at risk: Losing our forests means losing the fight against the climate crisis, putting biodiversity at risk of extinction, and threatening the lives of Indigenous Peoples who depend on the forest standing for their survival. (Greenpeace)
• Deforestation: Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro denied the existence of fires in the Amazon rainforest, calling it a "lie." Experts say that fires are not a natural phenomenon in the rainforest, but are usually man-made in order to clear deforested land for pasture. (Reuters)

Nuclear Power & Nuclear Waste
• Nuclear plants: As 2020, there were 57 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 95 nuclear power reactors in 29 U.S. states. Of the currently operating nuclear power plants, 32 plants have two reactors and 3 plants have three reactors. (EIA)
• Nuclear risk: What is often left out of the debate about the safety record of nuclear energy are the risks of alternative forms of electricity generation. Even after accounting for both the immediate and long-term toll of the three accidents, nuclear power has a remarkably safe track record compared to coal, natural gas, and even hydroelectric power. Moreover, nuclear energy can play a key role in climate change mitigation. (BAS)

• BIDEN: World should give $20B to Brazil to stop burning Amazon (Mar 2020)
• TRUMP: We need nuclear energy, and we need a lot of it fast (Mar 2011)
• BIDEN: Develop new nuclear technologies (Jul 2019)
• PENCE: Voted NO on barring website promoting Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump (May 2006)
• HARRIS: Figure out what to do with nuclear waste--not Yucca Mountain (Sep 2019)
• News on Nuclear Energy & Yucca Mountain Waste Site (Candidates' recent excerpts)

Clean Air Mercury Rule
• Mercury: The Clean Air Mercury Rule was built on EPA's Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) to significantly reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants -- the largest remaining sources of mercury emissions in the country. (EPA)
• Cost vs. Benefit: The Environmental Protection Agency changed the way the federal government calculates the costs and benefits of dangerous air pollutants, a shift that could restrict the ability of regulators to control toxins in the future. Some coal executives lobbied for the rollback, calling the Obama-era rule one of the worst examples of what President Trump has labeled the "war on coal." (Washington Post)
• Health effects: The EPA move leaves in place standards for emissions of mercury, which damages the developing brains of children and has been linked to a series of other ailments. But the changes greatly reduce the health benefits that regulators can consider in crafting futures rules for power plant emissions. That undermines the 2011 mercury rule and limits regulators' ability to tackle the range of soot, heavy metals, toxic gases and other hazards from fossil fuel power plants. (MarketWatch)

• TRUMP: We're going to put regulation industry out of business (Feb 2017)
• BIDEN: EPA must do better on mercury clean-up (Apr 2004)
• PENCE: Voted YES on speeding up approval of forest thinning projects (Nov 2003)
• HARRIS: Take on interests with profit motive to pollute (Sep 2019)
• News on Natural Resources / Pollution (Candidates' recent excerpts)

Flint Water
• In 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan, switched their water supply from using Detroit's system from Lake Huron, to their own system from the Flint River.
• In 2015, residents saw discoloration, and thousands of children were exposed to lead contamination.
• In early 2016, Gov. Rick Snyder and Pres. Obama both declared emergencies, and provided $58 million for cleanup.
• As of April 2016, four city, state, and federal officials had resigned, and criminal charges were filed against three others.

Animal Rights
• Animal rights is a growing issue in the environmental movement, underlying issues ranging from vegetarianism to closure of dog tracks. The core concept is to apply some rights to animals that apply to humans, at some cutoff level of animal intelligence. Most people agree on ending whale hunting, for example, because whales are intelligent; a majority of people agree that animal abuse should be prosecuted; some people apply those rules to all animals and would ban hunting or eating meat. The counterpoint considers the entire animal rights movement to be "political correctness."
• Endangered Species Act (ESA): 1973 law prohibiting activities that harm endangered plants or animals or their habitats. Which species are threatened & endangered are listed or ‘delisted’ by the Secretaries of Interior & Commerce. The controversy comes from limitations on private property to protect one species.

Eminent Domain Eminent domain is the government's power to force landowners to give up private property "for public use," [traditionally for roadways or public buildings like schools], while receiving "just compensation," as the Fifth Amendment puts it. In other words, when the government builds a highway through your land, it has to pay you the market value for that property.
• Kelo: In its landmark 2005 Kelo decision, the Supreme Court, with a 5-to-4 majority, extended eminent domain to the seizure of property for the use of business. In that particular case, Susette Kelo was being forced from her modest New London, Conn., home so that an urban village of hotels and stores could be built near a massive pharmaceutical research center. Local government strongly supported and assisted the project; local homeowners did not.

• Takings: The federal government is allowed to take private property when it serves the public interest (via ‘eminent domain’) but must pay fair market value. For example, when the Endangered Species Act regulates private property use (such as disallowing development), the value is decreased even though the property is not fully taken. The ‘takings’ controversy concerns how much the government should pay to property owners when their property is only partially taken.

Farm Policy Federal farm policy in the United States is based heavily on politics, rather than being based on the free market. For example, see our description of the subsidized and regulated milk market in our book review of Milk Money. Progressives generally push for the subsidies and regulations to favor small farmers over large agribusiness. Democratic moderates generally push for more farm exports and more programs that favor domestic production over imports (such as ethanol in gasoline, which is made from corn crops). Republicans are often conflicted about farm policy because they feature the conservative-favored goal of helping businesses and the economy, while they use conservative-opposed methods of government subsidies and regulations. Hence the ethanol subsidy is controversial among Republicans, but generally favored by all Democrats.