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The Trump Administration advanced three major projects in Alaska on Thursday, following through on Trump’s promise to “Drill, baby, drill!” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the projects, including opening the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area considered sacred by the Indigenous Gwich’in, to potential oil and gas drilling. A bill of tax breaks and spending cuts passed by Trump over the summer, called for at least four lease sales within the refuge over a 10-year period.
This marks another decision by the Trump administration affecting environmental policy. Earlier this year, in March, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a series of actions to roll back dozens of environmental regulations. AP News reports the drawbacks, consisting of at least 30 major rules, could cause a preventable 30,000 deaths and cost $275 billion each year.
Recently, a poll by the University of Chicago found that 91% of Americans have experienced extreme weather such as unusually hot or cold days, poor air quality, hurricanes, or floods. Nebraska has experienced some extreme weather in recent years, including heat, hail, storms, and incredibly high winds. The State Climate report for Nebraska predicts the state will experience increased stress on water resources. Additionally, the reports state that extremely hot days, 90 degrees or more, will multiply two to four times while statewide annual temperatures are expected to rise by five to six degrees by 2050.
The report warns that these factors could “significantly reduce agricultural output if unaddressed.” Agriculture is the state’s leading industry and a major contributor to the economy and job market.
The Nebraska Examiner spoke to State Climatologist Deb Bathke, one of the authors of the State Climate report, who said, “there is no debate among scientists that climate change in happening.” Despite this, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that by eliminating previously standing environmental regulations, he was “driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age.” However, it’s not guaranteed that the rules will be entirely eliminated as they have to go through a federal rulemaking process involving public comment and scientific justification. Soon after the EPA announcement, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann called the rollbacks, in an interview with AP News, “just the latest form of Republican climate denial. They can no longer deny climate change is happening, so instead they’re pretending it’s not a threat, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is, perhaps, the greatest threat that we face today.”
