By Tyler Treadway
November 16, 2016
TC Palm
Treasure Coast environmentalists hope campaign promise won’t become presidential action
Candidate Donald Trump made statements, including a threat to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, that could be detrimental to the Indian River Lagoon.
Treasure Coast environmentalists are waiting to see if President Donald Trump will follow through.
Trump told “Fox News Sunday” in October 2015 the EPA should be abolished because “every week they come out with new regulations.”
The Indian River Lagoon Council, established last year to oversee lagoon research and restoration projects as the local participant in the National Estuary Program, received $625,000 from the EPA for the current fiscal year.
“It’s a little too early to see where things are headed,” said lagoon council Executive Director Duane E. De Freese. “So far, all we’ve heard is campaign rhetoric. We’ll have to watch and see what the new vision for the EPA will be. But I can’t imagine a nation without clean water and clean air regulations at some level.”
De Freese noted the estuary program doesn’t issue regulations and has “gotten strong bipartisan support over the years.”
The council also receives money from the South Florida and St. Johns River water management districts, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the sale of Indian River Lagoon state license plates, four of the counties along the lagoon (Martin, St. Lucie, Brevard and Volusia) and the Indian River County Lagoon Coalition of Fellsmere, Sebastian and Vero Beach.
If worse comes to worse, the lagoon council could survive without federal funding, De Freese said.
“No question about it,” he said. “There’s strong local and statewide support for clean water. The local communities understand that you can’t have a thriving economy with dirty water. First of all, it’s a human health threat. Plus, clean water attracts people; dirty water repels them. In Florida, we can’t afford to squander the value of clean water.”
CUT, NOT KILLED
Nathaniel Reed
“The EPA isn’t going to be abolished,” said Nathaniel P. “Nat” Reed of Jupiter Island, a longtime Treasure Coast environmentalist and former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. “But its efforts to combat climate change could be subject to intense review.”
In a Nov. 6, 2012, Twitter post, Trump wrote, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Trump has named Myron Bell, an outspoken climate change denier, to lead the transition team for the EPA.
Trump could try to “cut the hell out of the EPA’s budget,” Reed said, “but he’ll need Congress to go along. Even though both chambers are now held by Republicans, the number of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate is really close. I don’t think any radical change in the agencies is going to happen.”
However, work toward combating climate change “is going to have to wait until a different group comes into office,” Reed said.
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