Left Coast leaders fiercely denounce Trump regime’s climate-sabotaging executive order

Aban­don­ing Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma’s noble efforts to bol­ster our com­mit­ment to car­ing for the Earth, our com­mon home, Don­ald Trump today signed an exec­u­tive order today that scraps the nation’s Clean Pow­er Plan, try­ing to undo one of the most impor­tant steps tak­en in recent years to com­bat the cli­mate crisis.

The move was met with loud and fierce denun­ci­a­tions from the Left Coast, which has a record of lead­ing on envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion. In a joint state­ment, the gov­er­nors of Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, and Cal­i­for­nia joined with the may­ors of Seat­tle, Port­land, San Fran­cis­co, Oak­land, and Los Ange­les to declare that that region was pre­pared to lead in tack­ling cli­mate dam­age and clean up our air, water, and soil, in defi­ance of the Trump regime and its back­wards agenda.

As the gov­er­nors of Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon and Cal­i­for­nia and the may­ors of Seat­tle, Port­land, San Fran­cis­co, Oak­land and Los Ange­les, we speak today in uni­fied oppo­si­tion to Pres­i­dent Trump’s Exec­u­tive Order with­draw and rewrite the Clean Pow­er Plan.

We won’t let the president’s mis­guid­ed deci­sion lim­it our region’s eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties or our com­mit­ment to doing what’s right to make our cities and states clean­er and health­i­er for future generations.

We speak as a region of over 50 mil­lion peo­ple with a com­bined GDP of $2.8 tril­lion. There is no ques­tion that to act on cli­mate is to act in our best eco­nom­ic inter­ests. Through expand­ed cli­mate poli­cies, we have grown jobs and expand­ed our economies while clean­ing our air.

This Order moves our nation in the wrong direc­tion and puts Amer­i­can pros­per­i­ty at risk. We will assert our own 21^st cen­tu­ry lead­er­ship and chart a dif­fer­ent course. Cli­mate change is one of our great­est threats, from more wild­fires threat­en­ing our homes and com­mu­ni­ties to ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion rock­ing our shell­fish indus­try to drought hurt­ing our farm­ers. Too much is at stake – from our health and safe­ty to our jobs and liveli­hoods – for us to move backwards.

We will hon­or our com­mit­ments to our com­mu­ni­ties to do what’s right to keep our res­i­dents safe, secure, healthy and pros­per­ous as we accel­er­ate our clean ener­gy econ­o­my and put the inter­est of our peo­ple before those of big pol­luters. We will con­tin­ue to invest in clean ener­gy that cre­ates local jobs and keeps util­i­ty bills low, and we will elec­tri­fy trans­porta­tion to pro­vide con­ve­nient, safe, and afford­able ways to get around our cities, and make our neigh­bor­hoods healthy and vibrant.

Our cities and states will con­tin­ue to assert our lead­er­ship and posi­tion our region for eco­nom­ic suc­cess. We urge states, cities and busi­ness­es from across the coun­try to join us in lead­ing and re-affirm­ing our com­mit­ment to cut car­bon emis­sions and reverse the dam­ag­ing impacts to our com­mu­ni­ties of unfet­tered pollution.

Joint­ly signed by:

Cal­i­for­nia Gov­er­nor Jer­ry Brown
Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown
Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee
Los Ange­les May­or Eric Garcetti
San Fran­cis­co May­or Ed Lee
Oak­land May­or Lib­by Schaaf
Port­land May­or Ted Wheeler
Seat­tle May­or Ed Murray

Mean­while, Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell, Pat­ty Mur­ray, Dianne Fein­stein, Kamala Har­ris, Jeff Merkley, and Ron Wyden (rep­re­sent­ing Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, and Cal­i­for­nia) joined col­leagues from New Mex­i­co, Neva­da, and Col­orado in send­ing Trump a let­ter urg­ing him to reverse course and leave the Clean Pow­er Plan in place.

“I am deeply dis­ap­point­ed that the Trump admin­is­tra­tion is doing exact­ly what we feared, and gut­ting our most crit­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions,” said U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray in a state­ment released fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of the letter.

“By rolling back the Clean Pow­er Plan and revers­ing mul­ti­ple major U.S. ini­tia­tives to com­bat cli­mate change, the Admin­is­tra­tion is mak­ing com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try more vul­ner­a­ble to cli­mate change than ever before.”

“The health of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans is now at risk with Pres­i­dent Trump’s exec­u­tive order allow­ing coal pow­er plants, the largest source of the nation’s harm­ful car­bon pol­lu­tion, to emit green­house gas­es with no reg­u­la­tion or penal­ty. Ignor­ing cli­mate change won’t just affect our envi­ron­ment and health – but also key parts of Wash­ing­ton state’s econ­o­my includ­ing salmon fish­ing and out­door recreation.”

“Trump is also send­ing a dan­ger­ous sig­nal by mov­ing back­wards on major cli­mate change ini­tia­tives, show­ing oth­er coun­tries that they can do the same,” Sen­a­tor Mur­ray observed. “We will con­tin­ue to see ris­ing sea lev­els, more dis­as­trous storms, and in Wash­ing­ton state — the effects of ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion and longer wild­fire sea­sons. We owe it to our chil­dren and our grand­chil­dren to fight back on this reck­less Exec­u­tive Order, and I will not stand down.”

Trump and his peo­ple are cer­tain to ignore the let­ter, but it’s good to see our mem­bers of Con­gress speak­ing out in opposition.

U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal (WA-07) also did­n’t mince words in her response to Trump’s dan­ger­ous and unhealth­ful order.

“This exec­u­tive order rep­re­sents more polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing from a pres­i­dent unwill­ing to rec­og­nize sci­en­tif­ic facts,” Jaya­pal said. “It rolls back progress we made under Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, puts the cli­mate and pub­lic health at risk, all while bail­ing out the president’s friends in the coal industry.”

“Don­ald Trump has tak­en his cli­mate change deny­ing rhetoric straight from the cam­paign trail to the White House, and is look­ing to do real dam­age to our efforts to com­bat glob­al warm­ing and pro­tect our plan­et,” she added. “The good news is that some of these safe­guards are on strong legal foot­ing, and the pres­i­dent can­not eas­i­ly revoke them with with­out a court challenge.”

“The sci­ence is clear on cli­mate change. The World Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion has warned us that 2016 was the hottest year in record­ed his­to­ry. It is our moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect our envi­ron­ment for future gen­er­a­tions and to just­ly tran­si­tion our econ­o­my from fos­sil fuels to clean ener­gy, pro­vid­ing sus­tain­able jobs to our com­mu­ni­ties. This exec­u­tive order is a huge step in the wrong direction.

“We’ve fought back against this president’s back­ward and destruc­tive poli­cies before. We will bring the same com­mit­ment and orga­niz­ing strength to pro­tect­ing our envi­ron­ment, and I will con­tin­ue to fight him every step of the way.”