As EPA’s Andrew Wheeler Comes to Colorado, Cory Gardner Enables Trump’s Toxic Environmental Agenda
Even During A Pandemic, Gardner Is A Rubber Stamp on EPA’s Crusade Against Clean Air & Water, Climate Action
Denver, CO - Senator Cory Gardner voted to confirm coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler -- who is visiting Pueblo today -- to lead the EPA and has been a reliable rubber stamp for the Trump Administration’s assault on Colorado's air, water, and health. During the global health pandemic, Gardner has stood willingly by as Wheeler has given an “open license to pollute” and implemented “essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules,” allowing our land, air, and water to be devastated by big polluters.
Here are four of the Trump administration’s anti-environmental policies that Gardner has supported:
- Gutting Clean Water Protections - Gardner “cheer[ed]” the Trump administration when they rolled back protections for major waterways, streams, and wetlands, allowing polluters to dump toxins into our drinking water.
- Dismantling Efforts to Fight Climate Change - On par with Trump’s climate denial, the EPA dismantled Obama’s signature effort to combat the climate crisis, and replaced it with a plan that “does virtually nothing” to slow CO2 emissions.
- Slashing Vehicle Emission Standards - Trump rolled back fuel efficiency standards, allowing cars to emit nearly a billion tons more carbon dioxide over their lifetime of the vehicles than they would have under President Obama’s standards.
- Relaxing Efforts to Curb Methane Emissions: Trump’s EPA gutted limits on climate-changing greenhouse gasses like methane -- which were modeled after Colorado’s own standard -- despite even major energy, automakers, electric utilities and industrial companies opposing the rollback.
Gardner is desperately attempting to greenwash his record of supporting Trump and Wheeler’s assaults on our land, air, and water, but his pro-polluter record is all Coloradans need to know.
Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen:
“Senator Gardner’s support for Andrew Wheeler is letting the fox guard the henhouse, and our environment is paying the price. Gardner has been a rubber stamp for Trump and Wheeler’s toxic agenda, stripping protections for our air and water and letting polluters off the hook during a global pandemic. Coloradans will remember that record in November.”
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