Page 216 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

212 G. MURDOCK

for the established three commercial networks (Kalhoefer 2017). President
Trump’s preliminary 2018 budget proposal, issued on 16 March 2017,
included a plan to eliminate completely the $445 million of federal funding
for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that supports both PBS and
public radio.
This squeeze on independent media scrutiny was accompanied by a $900
million funding cut to the Office of Science that supports essential research
and a major reduction in the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the main governmental body addressing climate related issues. If
implemented the budget would see the Agency’s funding slashed by 31%, its
workforce reduced by a fifth, and 50 or so programs eliminated, including
grants to support states and cities in combatting air pollution.
These moves follow a series of presidential orders removing restrains on
the fossil fuel industries. Regulations barring surface mining companies
from polluting waterways and compelling coal and energy companies to
pay more in federal royalties have been set aside, federal officials are no
longer required to consider environmental impacts when making decisions,
and the EPA has been instructed to dismantle President Obama’s Clean
Power Plan. This signature intervention requiring states to reduce overall
emissions and limiting carbon emission from power plants was announced
in advance of the Paris climate summit as a concrete demonstration of the
US’s determination to take the lead in combating climate crisis. Four weeks
before the summit, President Obama moved to bolster this claim by
turning down TransCanada’s proposal to build the Keystone XL pipeline
transporting oil from the Albert tar sands over a thousand miles to Steele
City in Nebraska where it would be transferred to another pipeline taking is
down to refineries on the gulf coast. The proposed Keystone route would
pass over an underground reservoir on the Great Plains, the main water
source for the region’s Native American communities. President Obama’s
intervention ended years of controversy and protest over possible pollution
and other concerns. Announcing his decision he reiterated the claim that
“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action on
climate change. Frankly, approving that project would have undercut that
global leadership, and that is the biggest risk we face: not acting”
(Jamieson 2017).
President Trump’s calculated assault on Obama’s measures to combat
climate crisis has the enthusiastic support of Scott Pruitt, his appointee as
head of the EPA. Pruitt has a long record of challenging environmental
regulations. During his tenure as attorney general of Oklahoma, he