Climate and Environment

The Democratic Party could spell this out clearly and consistently for voters.

During the Biden administration, EPA workers reported a staffing crisis at the agency. The Trump administration now wants to drastically decrease its work force. This blog overviews the impacts of an understaffed EPA on the health and wellbeing of our environment and communities.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the backbone of climate and weather research and information in the United States. Its annual budget is under $7 billion, and the value of the weather information that it shares with the public is estimated to be over $100 billion annually. That means the American taxpayer gets a more than fourteen-fold return on investment. (Now that’s government efficiency, contrary to the claims of DOGE and its sympathizers about eliminating government bloat.)

As the crypto industry continues to jockey for prominence in the second Trump administration this FAQ explains crypto’s impacts and influence.

This week, the Trump administration is moving fast to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), abandoning several active enforcement cases against financiers ripping off consumers. The SEC paused its case against Trump ally Justin Sun and handed the crypto industry another victory. Elon Musk continues to have field day after field day, slashing agencies he doesn’t like and watching his businesses balloon in value since the election. Several Trump appointees (like CFTC Chair Nominee Brian Quintenz and acting administrator of the PHMSA Ben Kochman) have major conflicts of interests which will likely skew agency action towards the interests of corporations at the expense of the public. We also witnessed an instance of blatant bias in how legal actions are handled, with leniency toward Republicans.

Oil Man Tapped for “Energy Czar”

This is the fourth installment in a four-part series critiquing Matt Yglesias’ support for deregulating the permitting process.

This is the third installment in a four-part series critiquing Matt Yglesias’ support for deregulating the permitting process.

This is the second installment in a four-part series critiquing Matt Yglesias’ support for deregulating the permitting process.

This is the first installment in a four-part series critiquing Matt Yglesias’ support for deregulating the permitting process.

“Abundance agenda” apostle Matt Yglesias’ affinity for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s deregulatory plans makes clear that this agenda is, at its heart, a neoliberal-approved version of Trumpian plunder.

When Donald Trump nominated North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be his interior secretary, centrist to right-of-center “abundance agenda” advocates were jubilant. Politico reported, with typically amoral zeal, that Interior would be led by an “overnight rock star in the tech and energy worlds.” Burgum has a foot in both camps, as a former governor from fracking country with deep ties to fossil fuel executives like fracking magnate Harold Hamm, and a venture capitalist invested in software companies who sold his own software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001.