Short Wave - From Stream To Sky, Two Key Rollbacks Under The Trump Administration

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

The Trump Administration has rolled back dozens of environmental regulations, which it regards as a burden to industry. Today on Short Wave, NPR National Desk correspondents Jeff Brady and Nathan Rott break down two — governing how the federal government regulates waterway pollution and emissions from coal-fired power plants.Follow reporter Emily Kwong on Twitter @EmilyKwong1234, Nathan Rott @NathanRott, and Jeff Brady @JeffBradyNews. Email the show at [e-mail]. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Emily Kwong here, filling in for Maddie who's out against our advice, chasing waterfalls. So last week, Scott Detrow and Pierre's politics correspondent, came on the podcast to talk about climate change where the leading Democratic presidential candidates stand because, well, today is the Iowa caucus. And let's not forget, they're all running against President Trump, who also came up in that episode. There's a pretty clear party disparity here. Trump administration just does not take climate change seriously. And over his first three years as president, President Trump has really done everything he can to dismantle everything that President Obama did to try to address climate change. And not just climate change.

The Trump administration has rolled back or tried to dozens of environmental regulations, which it regards as a burden to industry. So today we're turning our fancy shortwave microscope on that, not all of the rule changes and rollbacks, but two specific ones. And to help me, I've been pure correspondence, Jeff Brady and Nate Rot. Hey. Hey, there. Hey, Emily. Hi. So, what are you here to talk about?

Well, I've been reporting on coal-fired power plants and how their greenhouse gas emissions are being regulated. And I have been looking at federal protections for our nation's waterways and how the Trump administration is changing which of those waterways get federally protected. And together, we'll take you to that thrilling crossroads where science and government intersect. regulations. I promise. It's going to be good. Okay, today we're talking about the rollback of environmental regulations under President Trump. We're going to focus on two areas, energy and water. So NPR corresponders, Jeff Brady and Nate Ra are here to help. Nate, let's start with you and discuss our waterways. Okay, let's do it. All right. So let's start by setting a bit of a scene here, because water policy, you know, like any policy, can be a bit, you know, wonky.

Yeah, dry. You did it. I didn't want to do it, but you did it. So to give you a bit and of idea, let's paint a picture of what we're talking about here with the Trump administration's rollbacks. Let's go to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Yeah, the enchantment state. And the banks of the Santa Fe River, which runs right through downtown, almost in the shadow of the state capital. Now, Santa Fe is what I think most people would call a cremate.

or a stream, it's a small trickle. So this is nothing like the roaring Mississippi River, let's say. No, it is far from it. When I was there last spring, you could pretty much jump across it, maybe even step across it in some parts. But to locals, like Rachel Kahn, who met me there, that trickle was very, very impressive. This is like flow in New Mexico.

This is a lot of creatures depend on something like this. So Rachel is with a New Mexico-based conservation group called Amigos Bravo's that focuses on water issues in the state. And the reason that she was so stoked, you could hear it there, about that trickle of water, is because in an arid state like New Mexico, lots of rivers, creek, streams, go through large chunks of the year without any visible water at all. To 94% of our waters are these smaller types of waters that flow only part of the year. But they all drain into our bigger systems, and it is from these bigger systems that

close to 300,000 New Mexicans receive their drinking water from. So these types of smaller waterways like the Santa Fe that only run sometimes. After snow, rain, precipitation, they are called ephemeral streams. Okay, so Rachel's saying these ephemeral streams, very cool name, even if they're just to trickle have a big role to play in our watersheds. Yeah, totally. So think of them like as capillaries, you know, like the capillaries in your fingers that feed into your bigger blood vessels.

They're small, but they're really important to the bigger system. And the reason I wanted to set this scene and talk about these small types of waterways is because under the new rule just finalized by the Trump administration, ephemeral streams, among many other types of waterways, will no longer be protected under the Clean Water Act. Can you refresh me on what the Clean Water Act is? I know it was passed in the 1970s at a time when many waterways in the U.S. were not ones. You'd want to swim in. Yeah, definitely not swimming water. So the purpose of the Clean Water Act was to address that, to limit the types of pollutants that can be discharged into the nation's waterways. That part of the Clean Water Act is pretty clear.

What's less clear is which U.S. waterways get that federal protection. Okay. The statute says navigable waters. So Mississippi River, big honkin river, boats up and down it, that should be protected. What about the tiny little stream three states away, though? That's water will eventually reach the Mississippi River and potentially pollute there. Is that stream also protected by the Clean Water Act? That is a huge, messy, legal question.

So in 2015, the Obama administration weighed in. They expanded the number of waterways that got federal protection. And that was not well received, perhaps unsurprisingly, by many farmers, ranchers, and developers who thought it was a federal overreach. Right. And that was part of President Trump's campaign promise when he was elected in 2016, that he would change this. Right. So President Trump made the Obama rule one of his top targets when he was elected, and he undid that rule, repealed it last year.

Okay. His replacement was just finalized. And it goes the opposite way of Obama. It limits the number of waterways that get protection. No more ephemeral streams, roughly half of all of the nation's wetlands, other smaller waters, no longer get federal protection. And what does that mean exactly? So that means, you know, let's say you're an egg producer. and you're looking to discharge some wastewater from your chicken coop into an ephemeral stream,

well, the federal government is no longer going to stop you. That said, the state might. You know, state protections for waterways will still exist. But we should say those protections vary. And some states don't have many at all. Got it. And how has industry, how have industry groups reacted to this news? They're thrilled.

So I talked to Chad Smith, CEO of the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau back in April, before Trump's changes were made final. And he said, look, it's not like they want to go out and pollute. We want to make sure our waterways are clean. We want to make sure we protect our natural resources that we make a living off of. But he doesn't think that they need the federal government to come in and make that happen. The Obama-era rule, he says, was too broad. It was too burdensome.

And this new rule will give clarity to folks there on the ground that are trying to work under these regulations. But environmental groups and blue states are already saying they're going to plan to sue the Trump administration over this new rule. So clarity is clear as mud, let's say. Clear as mud and very much to be continued. Very much dot, dot, dot. Yes. All right. Well, turning now to you, Jeff Brady, you've also looked at some of the rollbacks on environmental policy by the Trump administration. So does Nate's reporting sound familiar? It sounds very familiar. I focused on the coal industry. And that industry has had a big issue with presidential bond. his Clean Power Plan, that was a plan to address climate change. It was sort of the centerpiece of his environmental agenda. And the industry also said that it just went too far.

Okay. Give me the Clean Power Plan cliff notes. What did it do? Well, I can state this pretty simply. The goal of the Clean Power Plan was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by nearly a third by the year 2030. Wow. That's pretty ambitious. Yeah. Yeah. Each state had its own goal. and they could figure out how to do that. But for many of them, to get down to that 30% goal, that meant shutting down coal-fired power plants. Okay. But, you know, the Obama Clean Power Plan, it never actually took effect because two dozen states, mostly coal-producing states, they sued to block it, and they won. Oh, right. And this put the Clean Power Plan in a kind of limbo.

It did. And then last year, the Trump administration replaced the Clean Power Plan entirely with its own effort to regulate greenhouse gases, and they called it the affordable clean energy rule or the ACE rule. Okay, so clean power plan out, ace in. How exactly does ACE differ? Well, it's a lot more narrowly focused than the clean power plan. It gives states a lot more discretion. This rule looks at individual power plants instead of the whole big picture. The bottom line is that under the ACE rule, it's more likely that an active coal plant would stay open longer. And remember, President Trump campaigned on this saying he would help the coal industry. We're going to open modern mines and take care of our great miners.

Our miners have been mistreated horribly. We will be producing clean coal, oil, natural gas, and shale energy. That was his promise. But here's a thing. Dozens of coal-fired power plants have shut down since President Trump was elected, and hundreds of plants have either closed or announced they will close. in the past decade. Wow.

Okay. What's behind that, all these closures? You know, it's mostly a function of markets favoring natural gas and renewable energy. Gas is super cheap because there's so much of it available thanks almost entirely to hydraulic fracturing or fracking as most of us know it. And that, of course, comes with its own environmental problems. But also renewable energy, especially wind and solar. It's been growing really fast over the past decade and a half.

So especially in these competitive markets, coal is really just getting pushed out of the whole picture. And because of this, the U.S. has already come close to meeting the emissions reduction goals set in Obama's clean power plan, even though that plan never went into effect. That is fascinating. So the one that was tossed out, the U.S. is still on track to meet those goals. Absolutely. So now you're seeing in communities with, they have these closed down coal-fired power plants and they're trying to figure out. These take up a lot of space. They're trying to figure out what to do with these old plants. And you went to a town with a shuttered coal plant last year, right? I did. It's in central Pennsylvania. The town is called Shamokan Dam. Shout out to Shamokan Dam. And that town's coal-fired power plant, it stood there for

decades, generating electricity. But not any longer. Enter Joe's Akaitis. He's with the redevelopment firm Arcova. And when I was there, they were laying a concrete foundation for a different kind of plant. There are a few chuckles in the conference calls in the mornings when we were first talking about it as an opportunity, but everyone's on board and supports it now. You want to take a wild guess at what kind of plant, Emily? Okay, nuclear, maybe? No. Gas. No. Well, there are gas plants there, but I'm talking about a different kind of plant. French fire oil. No. What is it? New medical marijuana cultivating facility. No, really.

Tell me about that medical marijuana cultivating facility. Yeah, and that medical marijuana facility is just part of the redevelopment plan for this site. As I mentioned, there's a new natural gas power plant on the property and even the potential to install solar panels. So what you're seeing at Shamokan Dam is an example of the larger trend across the country, replacing coal plants with natural gas and renewable energy. Okay, I have one more question for you both. So President Trump is delivering the State of the Union address tomorrow. At this point, would it surprise you if he brought up climate change? Yes.

Let me shake my magic cakeball. I feel pretty comfortable making a prediction here. I'll say that this is the first state of the union in quite a while now where I won't be assigned to work that evening. Of course, I'm still going to watch it because, you know, geek. Same. But this time, I was planning to geek out with a glass of wine. If he mentions climate change, I'm going to spill my wine, for sure. I hope you take a picture and send that to us.

All right, money on the table. Jeff Brady will probably not spill his wine. But maybe he will. It seems unlikely. It seems unlikely. It seems unlikely. It's a clean couch. We'll have to see.

Well, Jeff Brady and Nate Rod, it's been so great to talk to you. NPR National Desk reporters, eternal heroes to the science desk. Thank you so much for coming on Shortwave. Thank you for having. having us. This was awesome. Yeah, thank you. A lot of fun. You can find the links to more of Jeff and Nate's reporting in the notes of this episode page. Today's episode was produced by Britt Hansen and edited by Viet Le. I'm Emily Kwong. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.