Dread

[nwhiker]

Trump opened the Tongass National Forest to logging, by removing roadless protections. That's a gigantic giveaway to logging companies, and an incalculable loss to all of us. Trump to strip protections from Tongass National Forest, one of the biggest intact temperate rainforests. Make no mistake: winter weather will not stop them from doing as much destruction as they can as soon as possible. As soon as road is in, the whole meaning of roadless-so-no-logging becomes, well, irrelevant.

A few weeks back, he opened the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge for drilling.

He fired the acting chief scientist at NOAA after he (the scientist not Trump) sent political appointees an email message about NOAA's scientific integrity policy, which prohibits manipulating research or results.

He used an executive order to politicize the civil service, that gives him and his buds the ability to fire employees that they deem disloyal. For example, Fauci could be fired under these new rules: career officials, the backbone of government, could be fired for political reasons. Trump signs executive order that critics warn politicizes federal career civil service.

My fear is that, at this point, he expects to lose, and is going to do his best to cripple Biden, and put into motion rules and regulations, as well as grants to log and drill, that cannot be changed, leaving the next administration to deal with the horrific impact of these decisions.

And so, even if Biden wins, I dread the next three months.

Comments

[camelsamba]

I remember that in early 2017, the new congress was able to end some of Obama's EOs (or maybe new regulations? I forget the detail) because it was within some kind of window where that was allowed. I keep hoping it applies to these orders as well. I suppose I should do the research... (and I suppose it depends on whether or not Dems take the senate?)

[nwhiker]

True, and if we re-take the senate, that gets seated early Jan, right? So one less month of total chaos. Thanks.