“The Greatest Criminals of All Time”: Trump and Pruitt’s Destruction of the EPA and Obama’s Climate Legacy

• In Event: Regulatory Rollbacks 1: The Deregulation of Corporate Crime

Abstract

By the end of his second term, President Obama could point to some significant policy accomplishments concerning climate change. This included new auto fuel efficiency standards, a climate action plan, a historic agreement to reduce emissions with China, a Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon emissions from coal fired power plants, rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, and adoption of the historic Paris Agreement with the international political community in 2015. While these limited accomplishments did not go far enough to address the climate crisis, they were signs of significant progress. That progress would be destroyed by the Trump administration. Trump believes that climate change is a hoax and he has appointed climate deniers like Scott Pruitt (EPA) to leadership positions within his cabinet. Trump intends to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan and effectively dismantle the EPA. Journalist Tom Englehardt has predicted that the Trump administration would likely become involved in many crimes in the coming years, but that the administration’s suppression of scientific knowledge about climate change and refusal to take any steps whatsoever to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will prove them to “be the greatest criminals of all time.”

Authors

• Ronald Kramer, Western Michigan University

• Traci D. Joseph, Western Michigan University