LANSING– On Earth Day, State Senator Jeff Irwin, MDP Environmental Caucus Chair Andrew Nowicki, and environmental justice organizer Justin Onwenu held a press call blasting Donald Trump for his attacks on the environment during a global pandemic. READ MORE HERE:
Michigan Advance: Trump is ‘playing games with our lives,’ activists say on Earth Day
By Ken Coleman
- The Michigan Democratic Party hosted a tele-conference with state Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor), Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Environmental Caucus Chair Andrew Nowicki, and Justin Onwenu, an environmental justice organizer. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, they argued that Trump has continued to “wage a war” on the environment, including critical clean air regulations that prevented the emission of mercury and other toxic pollutants.
- “For years, we’ve seen Trump and his coal lobbyist and EPA administrator [Andrew Wheeler] … cutting and attacking and undermining any environmental protections that they can get their hands on,” Onwenu said. “They’ve replaced [President] Obama’s clean power plan, which had limited harmful emissions from power plants. They have rolled back successful clean car regulations and fuel-economy standards. And they spent the past four years undermining the Clean Air Act.”
- Irwin described the president’s management of COVID-19 as “bungling.” “While the president is engaging in such aggressive buffoonery around COVID-19, there are so many other issues. We can’t forget that it’s just not us who are breathing this air and drinking this water. It’s going to be left to our children and our children’s children. These are the negative impacts of the Trump administration that are going to perhaps last longer than some of the others that we’re experiencing more acutely now.”
- Nowicki blasted the Trump administration for cutting environmental protections and hastening climate change. “They’ve continued to dismantle these environmental protections designed to prevent mercury from poisoning our air,” he said.
