The Biggest Lie in Trump’s Environmental Speech Today

And there were many to choose from.

Ron Sachs/CNP via Zuma

There were so many lies strung together in President Trump’s environmental speech from the White House on Monday, it’s a challenge to fact-check.

“I’m glad you finally let people know what we’re doing,” Trump said, taking the podium from his Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler, who was one of the string of speakers appearing Monday in an event billed as touting America’s environmental leadership. “We’re working hard, maybe harder than all previous administrations, maybe almost all of them.” 

The audience laughed in response, as if in on the joke. (Since I was denied press credentials, I did not attend the East Room event and watched it on C-SPAN.)

Flanked by Ivanka Trump, half his Cabinet, and some select Republican members of Congress, Trump gave a rare and strange speech that meandered into the economy, plastics, particulate matter, the Paris climate agreement, and the Green New Deal. He claimed outright success on the environment despite the fact that for most of his administration, Trump and his Cabinet have participated in high-profile events at the EPA to celebrate rolling back major environmental and climate regulations—often with coal miners as a backdrop. The administration has already reversed more than 80 regulations protecting the air, water, and climate, while civil penalties for polluters were down 85 percent last year compared to the decade average.

To then claim he’s leading the world in environmental leadership is a lot like gaslighting, environmentalists pointed out before the speech. For instance, when Wheeler, who has been instrumental in rolling back many rules targeting ozone, methane, fuel efficiency, and water pollution announced at the same event, “Pollution is on the decline.”

Trump repeated claims that the US has cleaner air and water than the rest of the world, all of which have been routinely debunked. 

“From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to make sure America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet,” Trump said. “We want the cleanest air. We want crystal clean water. And that’s what we’re doing.”

This statement is wrong not just because Trump has rolled back so many environmental protections in half a term, but because the US does not actually have the cleanest air and water in the world. Pick your pollution, and the US has often trailed behind other wealthy countries—10th on overall air quality and 29th on water and sanitation, according to Yale’s Environmental Performance Index. Switzerland is number one. “The United States places 27th in the 2018 EPI, with strong scores on some issues, such as Water & Sanitation (90.92) and Air Quality (97.52), but weak performance on others, including deforestation (8.84) and GHG emissions (45.81),” the Yale Environmental Performance Index notes. “This ranking puts the United States near the back of the industrialized nations,” behind the UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia, and Canada.

When Trump uses arbitrary comparisons and percentages, there is a lot of obfuscation that can be done just by changing the timeline and the kind of pollution you’re looking at. When it comes to air and water pollution, most metrics look much better today than when the Clean Air Act was in its infancy in the 1970s, which is Trump’s point of reference. But when you look at environmental gains in the past few years, especially on Trump’s watch, the progress has either stalled or been reversed.

By the EPA’s own admission, the number of unhealthy air quality days in 35 major cities has gone up since 2016, from 702 days to 799 days. But the EPA characterizes this as “long-term improvement,” which it is—compared to 2000, and about 141 million Americans are still exposed to harmful pollution. 

Consider carbon pollution levels, which are increasing again. An analysis by the Rhodium Group found carbon emissions spiked 3.4 percent in 2018 after three years of decline, the second-biggest increase in two decades. The growth in transportation and natural gas plants share the blame. 

“There is no evidence that the air and water have gotten cleaner during the Trump administration,” said Judith Enck, visiting professor at Bennington College and former EPA regional administrator. “No amount of green washing that was on display in his speech will wipe away the severe and long lasting damage that he and his appointees have inflicted on the people and on the planet.”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate