At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Steve Bannon outlined the Trump administration’s three “lines of work”:
- National security and sovereignty
- Economic nationalism
- The deconstruction of the administrative state
Trump and Bannon are commencing this deconstruction with their first budget proposals:
- 43% or higher cut to the EPA’s budget for health and environment programs. (The total proposed cut to the EPA is 25%, but more thann 40% of the EPA’s budget is block grants to states, which Pruitt has said would not be cut. That means the entire 25% wil come from core research and protection activities.)
- 17% cut to NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), which oversees weather forecasting and is a major funder of weather and climate research. All meteorologists rely heavily on NOAA data for their forecasts.
Just as with Obamacare, Trump is overplaying his hand. 61% of Americans want the EPA either expanded or to remain the same, while only 19% want to see it weakened or eliminated. Even among Republicans, only 35% want to see it weakened or eliminated.
Over the last month, constituent anger and protests have stalled the repeal of the ACA and undermined the Muslim ban. We can make a difference. Join us in Ann Arbor at the April 22 March for Science and in DC for the April 29 People’s Climate March.