Former Republican EPA Leaders Back Clinton, Bash TrumpDonald Trump’s environmental stance is driving long-time Republicans from supporting him.
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“He hasn’t a clue about Republicans’ historic contributions to science-driven environmental policy”.
The ex-regulators, who between them served under presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, are the latest in a string of conservative officials to switch sides. Reagan ratified the Montreal Protocol, an worldwide agreement that is credited with stopping the growth of the ozone hole, and the first Bush president used the Clean Air Act to address acid rain, the former administrators write.
“Donald Trump threatens to destroy that legacy of respect for the environment and protection of public health”.
Trump, in a December rally in SC, described climate change as a “hoax” that’s being pursued by Democrats and their allies in order to profit from investments in renewable energy and other low-carbon projects. He has also mocked the Montreal Protocol, without naming it, by casting doubt on the harmful impact that some substances have on the ozone layer. And Bush signed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, addressing acid rain.
In an accompanying press release, the Trump campaign also promised to rescind Obama’s climate policies and to “cancel” the Paris agreement.
Ruckelshaus and Reilly also criticized Trump’s dismissal of climate change as a “hoax” created by the Chinese government and his pledge to pull the USA out of the global agreement on climate change reached in Paris previous year.
The Hill pointed out that the endorsement by Ruckelshaus and Reilly came a day after Trump gave an economic speech in which he detailed his plan to get rid of President Barack Obama’s climate change agenda, boost fossil fuels and put a moratorium on new regulations, moves the two former EPA heads said would be disastrous for the country.
Ruckelshaus has endorsed Democrats before, notably backing then-Sen.
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“We Republicans should be shocked, outraged even, at the prospect that all this progress, this legacy will be repudiated and rolled back by Donald Trump”, they wrote.
