Big Oil has taken over the environmental protection authority.
Last Tuesday of the EPA administrator Lee Zeldin officially made His plan to browse a 16-year judgment that allows the government to protect the country and the economy from the greenhouse gas pollution that promotes the climate crisis. The announcement effectively gives the country’s largest and most dangerous dirt, the right to non -regulated emissions. People around the world have been injured for generations.
It is really Orwellian to see how the EPA – an agency signed by Richard Nixon to protect the public from environmental deterioration – to move responsibility, to deal with the devastation of the climate crisis during a summer of extreme weather and after the hottest year in the recorded story.
But it’s not surprising.
Zeldin has made no secret of his ambitions In order to use the EPA as a means of deregulation and “drive a dagger directly into the religion of climate change in order to reduce the cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, to return auto jobs to the USA and more”. Of course, he is wrong in every point.
The prices are partly due to the market that its bosses have created. Random trade wars have prompted companies to do so Calculate more and others to be considered, to be completely closed. Energy generation was largely “unleashed” at the beginning of the year. The USA produced more crude oil at any other time in history During the production of renewable energies grew at the same time to the recording level. A “Renaissance of American vehicle production“Thanks to the investments from the Inflation Reducation Act, and led to a 34-year top value among vehicle agents. The” hazard insulation “was regarded as legal rights and countless innovations were created. In this step by Zeldin, Zeldin endangers.
The more than 10,000 companies The commitment to science -based emission reductions should be outraged. These companies will be left between state mandates – or lack – and market dynamics. Are the company manager already mainly invested in climate machines Because they are good business and build resistance, but an irregular regulatory environment questions these practices.
Performative orders like this make companies try to understand what it means for them. Add legal challenges to the guideline and the companies will be in the hover in the course of the court. While the administration frames this as a complaint against an ideology, companies worldwide will feel the effects.
Deregulation to this level only increases the exploding costs caused by the climate crisis in our collective end result. Regardless of whether a company has emission goals or not, extreme weather disasters are increasingly affecting more companies. The Census Bureau found that Almost one of 10 companies Recognized loss of money due to extreme weather. Overall, the reporting companies lost 32% of sales due to the events. In 2024 alone we suffered $ 182.7 billion US dollars of economic damage From 27 individual billion dollar climate disaster. More than 1,500 people lost their lives In the past three years in climate disaster.
However, the Trump government would believe that the greenhouse gases that contribute directly to intensify storms and fires are no danger to the public.
Zeldin is taken together with the targeted impact of the industry for renewable energies and “drives a dagger” – and twisted it in the background of the years of stability, investments, science, facts, progress and protection for companies and people who earn clean air, clean water and a certain level of safety.
So who benefits? The government’s strong benefactors. For them, a reversal undermining hard work, investment and time from the public and private sector undermining for years to protect the USA as a victory.
The simplest reaction to the turbulence caused by this guideline is to continue the work. If you have received climate obligations, you are not back. The widespread company “Greenhushing”-or when companies are afraid of reaffirming their substrates of climate action guidelines, for fear of drawing the government’s IRE. In order to compete globally and create long -term stability, we have to speak. We are beyond the point of the “optics” of the companies. The climate crisis will deteriorate whether Zeldin and the Trump government believe it or not. No executive order, law or explanation could wish.
For our part at PatagoniaWe will remain the course. We will continue to invest in decarbonization. It is good for business, customers and community. It also remains true to our purpose.
A committed company sector can prove that the invitation of this administration to irresponsible behavior will not undermine the obligations towards shareholders, employees and customers. Our companies and communities depend on it. If at all, this moment has to become a call to the business world, Zeldin and the Federal Government show how powerful the market can be.
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