President Trump plans to use his first speech addressing environmental and climate issues to point to the success of the U.S. economy under his administration as a necessary precursor to making progress on those fronts.
At the same time, he is set to tout the White House’s leadership in Superfund site reduction and improvements to water and air quality he says have already occurred, two advisers told reporters Monday.
{mosads}“The president recognizes that a strong economy is vital for a healthy environment and for improving environmental protection,” Mary Neumayr, chairwoman of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, said on a call with reporters Monday afternoon. “The U.S. continues to grow the economy and jobs while also leading in energy.”
Neumayr and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Andrew Wheeler will both speak alongside Trump at Monday’s scheduled White House event on “America’s Environmental Leadership.”
The timing of the event comes as environmental issues, and climate change in particular, are rising in importance for Democratic voters heading into the 2020 elections. Polls have shown global warming is now a top voting issue, ranking alongside health care and the economy.
During his presidency, Trump has come under fire for rolling back EPA regulations on methane, pollution from power plants and vehicle fuel standards. He has also proposed lifting a major Obama-era rule protecting water.
“Today President Trump will give a speech talking directly to the American people, to let them know we have made a lot of advancements and the environment is getting cleaner,” Wheeler said on the call. “Under the leadership of President Trump and this administration, we continue to clean up the air and clean up the water.”
Trump and Wheeler will point to statistics showing that as the U.S economy grew, its air pollution decreased. Last week’s monthly employment report released by the Labor Department showed a gain of 224,000 jobs in June, far exceeding expectations.
“As the U.S. has lead overtime at cutting air pollution, its economy has successfully reduced criteria air pollution by 74 percent since 1970,” said Wheeler on the call. “At the same time, the economy has grown over 275 percent.”
Trump himself has pointed to his administration’s clean air and water record in recent weeks.
“We have the cleanest water we have ever had,” Trump said at a news conference at the Group of 20 summit in Japan in late June. “We have the cleanest air we’ve ever had.”
But that line is contradicted by EPA statistics.
According to the EPA, in 2017, the first year Trump took office, there were 729 cases of “unhealthy days for ozone and fine particle pollution” across 35 major U.S. cities. Those numbers were an increase of 20 percent from the year before when the Obama administration set records for the fewest air polluted days in 2016.
Asked to clarify where Trump got the impression that the U.S. lead on clean air, Wheeler said he believed that the U.S. lead many other countries on the issue.
“I do believe that our air is cleaner and our water is cleaner than other countries across the world, and I believe our data supports that,” he said.
Wheeler cited numbers as far back as the 1970s, saying it was a comparison to contradict media reports that say pollution is getting worse.
“We’re not taking credit for what happened before, but we are acknowledging and the American public needs to understand, that the air has not gotten worse … but it’s gotten better,” Wheeler said.
Adding: “Under President Trump’s watch, all six quality air pollutants have decreased.”
Wheeler also indicated one topic the president would discuss when speaking about leadership on the international stage: marine debris.
The EPA chief promoted international coordination on reducing marine trash during a recent visit to Japan for a meeting of environmental ministers
“We are taking international leadership on marine plastic debris,” he said simply. “We are taking international leadership on this issue.”
When it comes to the fate of the Paris climate agreement, which Trump in 2017 pledge to pull the U.S. out of, Wheeler signaled there’s been no recent change of heart.
“President Trump, when he was running for president, ran on the commitment to withdraw from Paris climate accord and that was a promise he made and a promise he is keeping,” Wheeler said.