President Trump has not always been beloved by the women, and that now includes Mother Nature as well. Within his first week in office, he has waged a war against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA employs about 15,000 citizens nationwide on a $8 billion annual budget that is now looking to be cut or even eliminated entirely.
According to the Associated Press, the White House has imposed a contract freeze and media blackout. The contract freeze prevents tens of new environmental rules developed in the final months of the Obama administration from being passed and enforced. The President has also ordered a suspension on business activities between the EPA and contractors to delay EPA activities across the nation.
The media blackout limits the EPA's free use of press releases, blog updates, and social media posts. Anything critical that must be sent by the EPA to the public will be screened. The Associated Press also reports, "The Trump administration is mandating that any studies or data from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public." The EPA is under intense micromanagement by the Trump team, and was also told in an article from Reuters that the Trump administration told the EPA to remove pages dedicated to climate from their website.
The President and his administration have been very vocal about their denial of severe man-made climate change in the environment. Many Republicans find the EPA to be an obstruction to the free market. Its regulations on limiting society's carbon footprint is a curveball several large companies overcome to compete.
As Trump's team tries to deregulate the powers of the EPA, more corporations will have the ability to operate more freely hoping to generate more revenue. The consequences, however, can be complete destruction of the natural habitat and the ecosystems that formulate earth's biosphere.
