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What will a Trump presidency mean for environmental regulation?

November 9, 2016

Depending on your politics, you might be celebrating this morning, or still seething.

But wherever you stand, there’s probably one thing we can all agree on: with Trump in the White House and the GOP controlling Congress, Republicans are now in position to bring about drastic change.

Some of these changes might include massive tax cuts for high earners, an increase in defense spending, repealing Obamacare (among many other things), but what sort of implications will a Trump presidency have on environmental regulation?

Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has held a hard-line stance on the EPA and environmental regulation. Back in September, in a speech made to natural gas and energy leaders, he said, “Regulations are becoming a major industry right now. We’re going to make it a much smaller industry, maybe a minor industry.”

Donald Trump has famously said that he believes climate change is a “hoax” engineered by the Chinese government, so it’s not surprising that he has vowed to “cancel” the Paris climate deal, undo Obama’s carbon-cutting Clean Power plan, and roll back the Waters of the United States Rule. He has promised to unravel the Obama administration’s ban on new coal leases on federal lands, and pledged to conduct a top-down analysis of all “anti-coal regulations issued by the Obama administration.”

In an exchange with Chris Wallace, Donald Trump hinted that he might cut the Environmental Protection Agency altogether, saying, “Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations. They’re making it impossible—”

Wallace interrupted him to ask, “Who’s going to protect the environment?”

“They — we’ll be fine with the environment,” Trump replied. “We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy businesses.”

Donald Trump has also mentioned that he wants to slash all federal funding on clean energy, including R&D for wind, solar, nuclear power, and electric vehicles.

Come January 20th, 2017—however you feel about these policies, or however they will affect your business—change is coming. We’ll be there with you to report on it, every step of the way.

Disposal of hazardous waste doesn’t have to be painful.