The Republican platform attacks the environment

Posted by Jeff on Jul 20, 2016 @ 11:13 am in Conservation | 0 comments | Last modified: July 19, 2016

The Republican Party’s 2016 platform was released at its national convention in Cleveland. It contains sections called “A New Era in Energy” and “Environmental Progress.” Ha. If you want a guide to what Republicans would do with full control of the federal government, you couldn’t get a better one than this 2,400-word part of the platform.

• Cancel the Clean Power Plan
• Build the Keystone XL pipeline and more like it
• Kill federal fracking regulations
• Oppose any carbon tax
• Expedite export terminals for liquefied natural gas
• Abolish the EPA as we know it
• Stop environmental regulatory agencies from settling lawsuits out of court
• Forbid the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide
• Turn federal lands over to states
• Revoke the ability of the president to designate national monuments
• Halt funding for the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change

There’s also some random small-bore stuff, like opposition to listing the gray wolf or the lesser prairie chicken as endangered species. There are a ton of right-wing talking points, like declaring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution.” And there are additional paeans to the virtues of increased fossil fuel extraction.

In one particularly impressive rhetorical backflip, after the platform calls for virtually eliminating all environmental protections, it then says, “The environment is too important to be left to radical environmentalists.” Eesh.

Cite…