Let’s talk about a very specific lie Donald Trump has been telling on the campaign trail. He says he loves clean air and clean water, and who doesn’t? But, as the New York Times reports, he’s not telling the truth about his record.
“During our four years, we had the cleanest air and the cleanest water,” Trump said during an interview with the podcast host Joe Rogan last week.
That statement is not accurate. As president, Trump rolled back reams of environmental regulations, leading to increases in harmful emissions from power plants and factories, and an uptick in pollutants flowing into public waterways.
This shouldn’t be complicated or even controversial. We can debate whether a specific policy or program aimed at protecting water and air quality is a good trade off or not if, for example, it might cost jobs or raise consumer prices. But it’s obvious that ending policies or cutting programs aimed at reducing pollution will increase pollution. During Trump’s presidency, the air and water of the country got dirtier because his policies made them dirtier.
When it comes to burning fossil fuels, we know that a lot of people make money in the oil and gas industries. We know that people want cheap energy and suffer when prices are high. We’d all like America to continue as an energy-independent country. But we also know that these industries are the main drivers of an increase in average global temperatures. We know that the year 2023 “was the hottest in recorded history by a wide margin.” And we know that higher temperatures lead to more wildfires, flooding, and hurricanes, among other problems like drought and crop loss.
Trump regularly repeats Sarah Palin’s old mantra that we should, “Drill, baby, drill,” and has courted oil and gas executives. He asked them “to donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign while promising to roll back regulations.”
There’s research being done on how to take some of the carbon produced by fossil fuels out of the air, and hopefully we can find ways to make burning fossil fuels less harmful to the environment, but in general it is obvious that burning more fossil fuels will make temperatures rise higher and faster. Loosening regulations, including any plan to“tear down and rebuild” the Environmental Protection Agency, will encourage more carbon pollution while doing less to mitigate its effects. If you support this because you think your livelihood or your local economy depends on it, that may be shortsighted and selfish, but it’s at least a reason. Some people don’t feel they have the luxury to make sacrifices for the greater good, and I’m not here to disrespect them or dismiss their concerns. But I will dismiss and disrespect people who think Trump’s record or proposals produced or will produce clean air and clean water, or lower global temperatures.
They won’t because they’re designed to do the opposite.
Why does Trump promise more pollution with his policies while saying he loves clear air and clean water? It’s because he wants that $1 billion from the oil and gas industry, and he wants votes and political support from people and communities that work in those industries, but he wants to fool others that he cares about the environment and the future.
Don’t fall for it.