Trump Finalizes Plan to Poison 60% of Nation's Waterways

By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair

24 January 20

Golf developers, among others, had been pushing for the move.

onald Trump has been pretty busy the last few months arguing that there’s nothing wrong with trying to extort another country for personal gain, threatening to commit war crimes, and making the case that bribery should be legal. But like a busy father who always makes time to read his children a story before bed, he’s not forgotten other causes near and dear to his heart, namely, destroying the planet and prioritizing corporate profits over human health. Earlier this month he announced a plan to gut the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to assess the impact of major projects on the environment, and on Thursday, he trained his fire on those pesky laws designed to keep the nation’s water clean, which have been really cramping his golfing buddies’ style.

Per the New York Times:

The Trump administration on Thursday finalized a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands, and groundwater, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers, and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens.

From day one of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s “Waters of the United States” regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in about 60 days, is the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling, and endangered species protections.

Although Mr. Trump frequently speaks of his desire for the United States to have “crystal-clean water,” he has called his predecessor’s signature clean-water regulation “horrible,” “destructive,” and “one of the worst examples of federal” overreach.… “That was a rule that basically took your property away from you,” [said] Mr. Trump, whose real estate holdings include more than a dozen golf courses. (Golf course developers were among the key opponents of the Obama rule and key backers of the new one.)

How does the new rule stack up to the old one? Well, the Obama rule protected roughly 60% of the country’s waterways, including large bodies of water like the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, and Mississippi River, as well as smaller wetlands, headwaters, and streams. It limited the discharge of things like pesticides, fertilizers, industrial chemicals, and other stuff you’d probably not want to drink into those waters. Whereas Trump’s rule:

...removes protections for many other waters, including wetlands that are not adjacent to large bodies of water, some seasonal streams that flow for only a portion of the year, “ephemeral” streams that only flow after rainstorms, and groundwater. Legal experts say that Mr. Trump’s replacement rule would go further than simply repealing and replacing the 2015 Obama rule—it would also eliminate protections to smaller headwaters that have been implemented for decades under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

That could open millions of acres of pristine wetlands to pollution or destruction, and allow chemicals and other pollutants to be discharged into smaller headland waters that eventually drain into larger water bodies, experts in water management said. Wetlands play key roles in filtering surface water and protecting against floods, while also providing wildlife habitat.

“This is rolling back federal jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act further than it’s ever been before,” Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School, told the Times. “Waters that have been protected for almost 50 years will no longer be protected under the Clean Water Act.”

While fossil fuel groups unsurprisingly cheered the change, government scientists—even ones appointed by Trump— were less enthused. The EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board said that the new rule flagrantly ignores science by “failing to acknowledge watershed systems,” adding that it found “no scientific justification” for excluding certain bodies of water from protection, and that pollutants dumped in smaller and seasonal bodies of water can still have a massive, devastating impact on the health of larger water systems. Anyway, happy golfing!

Giuliani threatens to...keep doing exactly what he’s been doing for a year now

The former mayor and presidential coconspirator has threatened to go public with everything he knows re: Joe Biden and Ukraine, which so far has involved nothing bearing any resemblance to reality:

Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for President Trump, threatened Thursday to go public with information that would expose corruption by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. “Everything I tried to tell the press last March is now coming out, and more. I will now start to reveal the evidence directly to you, the People,” the former New York mayor tweeted. “The Biden Family Enterprise made millions by selling public office. Then when Joe was Obama’s Point Man, they ALL made millions.”

Giuliani’s claim that he could reveal evidence detrimental to the former vice president follows his offer to testify in Trump’s impeachment trial taking place in the Senate. “I would love to see a trial. I’d love to be a witness—because I’m a potential witness in the trial—and explain to everyone the corruption that I found in Ukraine, that far out-surpasses any that I’ve ever seen before, involving Joe Biden and a lot of other Democrats,” he said Sunday morning on The Cats Roundtable with radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970.

Unfortunately for Rudy, thus far his prayers have not been answered. While the president’s impeachment team has seen nothing wrong with hiring Clinton hysteric Kenneth Starr and Jeffrey Epstein pal Alan Dershowitz to represent the president, thus far it’s been reticent to allow Giuliani to get anywhere near the Senate proceedings, which might have to do with the fact that he’s a key player in the scheme for which Trump is on trial

Poll: One in three Republicans think Trump is probably a criminal

...whom most would be devastated to see leave office, according to a recent poll, the title of which should probably be, “What the Hell?”

...the crosstabs of the Pew poll help illustrate the complexities of Republican attitudes toward the president’s conduct that are relevant to consider as House impeachment managers continue to lay out their case this afternoon. The survey shows that 47% of Republicans say Trump has definitely or probably done things that are unethical since launching his 2016 campaign. Another 34% say Trump has “probably not” behaved unethically, and just 18% say he’s “definitely” not.

On a separate question in the survey, 32% of Republicans say they think Trump has definitely or probably done things that broke the law. Among self-described moderate and liberal Republicans, 48% say Trump has probably or definitely done illegal things since launching his campaign. Only one in five conservative Republicans say this. But, but, but: Among the one in three Republicans who think Trump has likely done illegal things, 59% say he should remain in office. Another 38% say he should be removed.