I never had the pleasure of meeting Jim Bruggers, the long-time environmental reporter for The Courier Journal of Louisville who died last week at age 68. But I am well aware of his reputation for integrity and his efforts to make Kentucky and beyond a safer, healthier place to live.
Bruggers was renowned for exposing the health risks associated with burning fossil fuels, chemical pollutants and the general neglect accorded the region’s waterways. He provided a true public service spotlighting environmental hazards, an issue that remains too often neglected to this day.
His passing comes at a time when environmentalism and efforts to reverse the dangers of global climate change are being both ignored and disparaged on the national scene, the subject of a sneering and a contemptuous campaign undertaken by President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump, who seems to be summoning the spirit of Ming the Merciless in his desire to destroy the planet.
Trump has been chastised recently, and his poll numbers have continued to decline, for a succession of missteps, ranging from engaging in an unpopular war of choice with Iran to botching the renovation of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial here in DC, a trivial though costly matter that nonetheless is adding to his humiliation, and rightfully so.
But Trump’s war on the environment simply isn’t getting the attention it deserves, given the stakes involved. Earlier this month, for instance, the administration, for no particular reason, announced plans to dismantle a $368 million deep-ocean observation system used to, among other things, measure the impact of global climate change.
The White House has since backed off the plan, at least temporarily, in the face of bipartisan resistance in the Senate. But it stands as another example of his contempt for any environmental concerns and scientific research itself.
As you might expect, Trump speaks out of both sides of his mouth on the environment, saying in a 2019 speech “we’re working on so hard to ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet.”
The record proves otherwise. He continues to promote what he ridiculously and ludicrously characterizes as “beautiful, clean coal’’ as the nation’s primary energy source, even though it’s significantly dirtier and costlier than other forms. Earlier this month he created a $700 million program to support coal-fired power plants — attracting the gushing support of Rep. Andy “It’s Not a Sin to be White’’ Barr, R-Lexington — and sponsor greater coal exports, all the while dismissing solar power and bad mouthing wind turbines.
Ironically, the announcement came just as it was revealed that in May, for the first time in history, solar power supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal. The Trump initiative will, among other things, help build coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia, the first new U.S. coal plants since 2013, as he seeks to undermine cheaper renewable resources.
Coal combustion releases carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas driving global climate change. It’s an established fact that coal-fired power plants emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that contribute to acid rain, smog and respiratory illnesses.
Yet Trump maintains an unswerving faith in coal in the face of economic and environmental realities. Trump isn’t buying into global climate change despite scientific studies and the acknowledgement from world climatologists regarding its existence. To Trump, claims of global climate change are a “hoax,” “a con job,” and “costly nonsense.’’
“Climate change is a big scam for a lot of people to make a lot of money,’’ he once said, without revealing the source of his advanced degree in climatology.
What a whiz, this guy is.
But this is all just a fraction of the Trumpian war on the environment, which started almost immediately after he was sworn into office in January 2025. Since that time his administration has sought to weaken dozens of rules dealing with the environment, ranging from offering exemptions to clean air standards to eliminating research and development within the Environmental Protection Agency, a department he has essentially destroyed.
The most significant and extraordinary change revolves around the administration’s effort to eliminate the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gasses, asserting that doing so violates the rules set forth in the Clean Air Act of 1970, a rationale no one is buying.
In February, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, with Trump in attendance, announced that the agency was revoking the so-called “endangerment finding,’’ a scientific determination reached in 2009 under President Barack Obama that pollutants like methane and carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels was a danger to the public health and, therefore, could be regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act.
The endangerment finding formed the basis for the EPA’s efforts to regulate pollution from coal and gas-fired power plants, car and truck emissions and methane from oil and gas drilling.
With a snap of his fingers, and offering no supporting evidence that the finding was incorrect, Trump made the government’s effort to control the proliferation of greenhouse gasses disappear by effectively eliminating its power to regulate the pollutants emitted by new motor vehicles and sources like power plants.
The Environmental Defense Fund maintains the Trump administration move will increase America’s greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next 30 years. The additional pollution could result in 58,000 premature deaths and an increase of 37 million asthma attacks through 2055.
Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the president-cum-dictator’s actions “cynical and devastating,’’ maintaining it stands as “the single biggest attack in history on the federal government’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis.’’
“With millions of Americans facing stronger storms, hotter heat waves, and more dangerous wildfires, the Trump administration is trying to pretend it’s all a hoax and there’s nothing to be done about it,’’ Bapna said. “But the impacts of climate change are right here, right now.
“This decision will mean more unnatural disasters — from extreme storms to deadly heat — hurting people nationwide. The EPA should be working to protect all Americans — not giving a free pass to oil billionaires.’’
In another stunning move this month, the EPA eliminated the practice of estimating the economic value of lives saved through environmental action by placing restrictions on the consideration of two of the deadliest air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone. From now on the only calculations will involve potential costs to industries, meaning the agency will give no thought to the clear and present dangers to the public.
The assault, naturally, isn’t restricted to air pollution. Late last year the administration moved to narrow the definition of waterways protected under the Clean Water Act. That move would lead to a weakening of restrictions on runoff from agriculture, mining and petrochemical sites, potentially presenting new dangers to the water supply.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency, created by President Richard Nixon, a Republican, in 1970, is a shell of its former self. In his budget request issued earlier this year, Trump proposed cutting the agency’s budget in half to about $4.2 billion. It has seen a radical workforce reduction, with Zeldin shrinking the staff by about 20 percent, levels that haven’t been seen since the mid-1980s, according to the Associated Press.
Zeldin has also dismantled research and development offices at labs across the country, The Associated Press further reported the proposed EPA budget would sharply reduce support for state environmental programs and state-administered loans for water projects. It would also halt what it calls “radical climate research” and cut resources for enforcement and compliance.
“Zeldin has executed the fossil fuel industry’s agenda. A massive reckoning is coming,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
Bruggers did God’s work. Trump is taking his inspiration from someone else.