While critics and supporters alike pore over President Trump’s proposed federal budget to pinpoint programs that will suffer and savings that will benefit taxpayers, President Trump’s vision of the federal budget includes welcome reform at the Environmental Protection Agency. It would slash appropriations for the EPA’s climate programs; instead of global warming, the budget “reorients EPA’s air program to protect the air we breathe.” From this statement, it is safe to infer that President Trump intends to refocus the agency on doing its job as intended by the Congress.
Over the last decade, climate change has become the EPA’s number one priority. Consider the ascendancy of global warming in the agency’s multi-year strategic plans for air quality, which are required by law. In the EPA’s 2001 — 2005 Strategic Plan, “Goal 1” is “Clean Air,” while climate change mitigation was subsumed in “Goal 6: Reduction of Global and Cross-Border Environmental Risks.” However, in the 2006-2010 plan, climate change mitigation is incorporated into a new “Goal 1,” which is titled “Clean Air and Global Climate Change.” And in the 2011-2015 plan, “Goal 1” is changed again to “Taking Action on Climate Change and Improving Air Quality” — that is, global warming is listed before improving air quality.
