Thanks to Trump, protests are the new brunch. (There are even T-shirts). This week’s protest? The science march. Donald Trump has never concerned himself much with facts: of the nearly 400 Trump statements Politifact has analyzed, only 4 percent were rated “True.” So it should not come as a surprise that as president, Trump has been no friend to science. Unfortunately, Trump’s anti-science posture goes far beyond spewing “alternative facts.”
In his first few months in office, Trump, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and their allies in Congress have proven their hostility to the role of science at the EPA and their willingness to heed the requests of polluters. Here are the top seven ways Trump’s EPA is attacking science:
- Administrator Pruitt rejected decades of science to keep a dangerous pesticide on the market
- The EPA is full of climate science deniers, starting at the top
- President Trump determined that climate change has no cost
- President Trump has proposed drastic funding cuts to the EPA’s scientific research
- President Trump and Congress want to slash the EPA’s scientific expertise
- Rep. Lamar Smith wants to block the EPA from using sound science to set pollution standards
- President Trump has failed to hire scientists throughout the government
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ACTION OF THE DAY
March for Science. We aren’t going to sit silently as the Trump Administration attacks science, scientists, and evidence-based policymaking. Budget cuts, censorship, and threats to dismantle government agencies harm us all, putting our health, food, air, water, climate, and jobs at risk. That’s why we’re joining the March for Science in DC tomorrow (Earth Day!). Not in DC? Join one of these 500 satellite marches. If you can’t make a march, tune into CSPAN at 12:50ish to hear CAP Action’s very own VP of Energy and Environment Policy, Christy Goldfuss speak.
WHAT’S TRENDING
Fishy. On Wednesday, House Oversight chair Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) surprised Washington when he announced that he would not seek reelection in 2018. Now he’s saying he might not even finish the rest of his term. Chaffetz denies chatter of any “scandal” forcing him out of office, but it does look like he’s trying to get out of the public spotlight, pronto. Stay tuned.
France. ISIS has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s vicious shooting in downtown Paris, which killed one officer and left two wounded just ahead of the first round of French Presidential elections. President Trump commented immediately on the potential political impact of the attack, which some say will bolster support for far-right nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen and the Nationalist Front with its anti-Islam and anti-immigrant positions. The Nationalist Front is also benefiting from Vladimir Putin’s interference, with Russia drawing on the playbook it used to impact the 2016 U.S. election. We’ll know more come Sunday, when French voters head to the polls.
Firsts. Newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made his first decision as a Justice this week. It was to let an Arkansas man be killed.
Not coming to a city near you. Citing ethical concerns, Ivanka Trump has announced she’s cancelling the book tour for her book and donating all her compensation for the book to charity. Though she’s skipping this potential conflict of interest, Ivanka still has plenty of other conflicts of interest to keep her busy. Ivanka’s book is titled “Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success,” which is interesting since she hasn’t done much in her official government role to promote policies that would help working women, like guaranteed paid family and medical leave and paid sick days.
Not-so-breaking news. Texas’s voting laws have been found to be intentionally racist… yet again. In the third ruling against Texas’s voter laws this month, Texas’s congressional maps and state legislative maps have been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Read more here.
UNDER THE RADAR
“The law isn’t made for people like us.” When she was 18, Mara Pellittieri almost married her best friend. Not because they were in love—Mara is a queer woman and her best friend is a gay man—but because that seemed like the simplest way to make the law, which in many ways doesn’t protect the LGBT community work for them. Read the full story here.
GOOD NEWS
Make Lemonade. States have mostly been making headlines for passing bad laws lately. But in an era of hyper-partisanship Utah just passed a law that everyone should be able to get behind.