Trump guts EPA while NY pursues wind energy

One of President Donald Trump’s pet peeves seems to be that people are concerned with the state of our planet, or perhaps he thinks that there’s a planet B for billionaires to escape to when global warming makes this one uninhabitable.

Right there in his proposed budget, along with the massive gutting of our essential safety net, is the slashing of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funds for maintaining the safety of our air, water and soil. Research projects on climate change are being nearly eliminated. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Atlantic coast are up for grabs by gas and oil companies whose greenhouse gases are fueling climate change.

In New York, however, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is taking a smarter path. He is calling for a carbon-free electric grid by 2040 and working to decarbonize transit in order to remove greenhouse gases from the air. Right now, there is aggressive development of renewable wind power off Long Island to reach 9,000 megawatts by 2035. These are not wind mills to tilt at, but to embrace, while Congress pricks the hot air balloon of this amoral presidential budget.

Barbara Burge Amenia