Joe Biden’s big cleanup

| 4:00 pm EST December 12, 2020
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No matter how many times Donald Trump got laughed out of court this past month, it didn’t stop the impeached sore loser from filing new lawsuits to overturn millions of American votes simply because they were cast for his opponent. Despite being one-third comprised of Trump nominees, the U.S. Supreme Court finally put an end to Trump’s devil-may-care sedition on Friday by refusing to entertain his frivolous, narcissistic arguments.

While our democracy may have been rescued once again from Trump’s evil talons, the peril to our planet continues to grow at an alarming rate and demands an unprecedented level of attention in 2021. As promised, Trump has drained the swamp in Washington—only to replace it with something so foul and corrupt as to make whatever may have been the old swamp seem like Brita-filtered water.

Trump has been gleefully and systematically destroying the Earth through an unconscionable combination of inaction and steroidal deregulation. The fact Trump is leaving office in little over a month has not stopped this wounded monster from regurgitating over what is left of our planet’s limited natural resources.

According to a recent New York Times analysis, the Trump administration has succeeded in reversing 84 key environmental rules and regulations while still rushing to pursue an additional 20 rollbacks. Trump has removed vital protections for clean air, water, land, wildlife, and climate, often doing so quietly while distracting us with more immediate and outlandish shenanigans and scandals.

Instead of packing his bags, Trump is tripping over himself to finalize new rules that would further cement his legacy as Earth’s most enthusiastic wrecking ball. In the area of energy efficiency, to cite just one example, one rule would let appliance manufacturers devise their own ways of determining if their products meet government standards while another rule would grant manufacturers automatic waivers from complying at all.

Fortunately, the incoming Biden administration will be able to reverse some of Trump’s destructive measures promptly. Biden will take immediate action to stop the bleeding by issuing executive orders and pursuing global action such as rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and “lead[ing] an effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets,” according to the Biden-Harris transition website.

However, to truly reign in climate change and reverse the damage of the last four years will require nothing less than sweeping legislation by the 117th Congress. The upcoming Georgia Senate runoff elections are critical because they will determine whether Mitch McConnell can continue standing in the way of urgent efforts to repair and protect our precious planet. We must double our efforts to get out the vote for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock on January 5. Our planet’s survival depends on it.