The April issue of the Atlantic magazine with the cover story, “How to Destroy a Government” by George Packer, subtitled, “The president is winning his war on American institutions” landed in my mailbox just as coronavirus cases first started being reported in the United States. The article was about the dismantaling of Justice and State departments, but the same corruption and politicization applies to the Interior department and EPA (run by an oil lobbyist and coal lobbyist respectively), and to the White House National Security Council, which had a Global Health Security and Biodefence team dedicated to pandemic response that was disbanded by the Trump administration in the spring of 2018. Thus, the U.S. failed to quickly roll out widespread testing for coronavirus, prepare properly or take the threat seriously enough early enough.

The U.S. now has more coronavirus cases than any other nation on earth. States and local governments are doing what they can to respond and base decisions on best available scientific information. As for the federal government, we can do a couple of things right now.

1. Push for congress to do the right thing. That certainly includes relief for those affected by both the health and economic crisis we are in. The Sierra Club drove 30,000 emails to members of Congress supporting the coronavirus relief package, which provides sick leave, unemployment benefits, free coronavirus testing, and food and medical aid to people affected by the pandemic. We also need to protect workers and our economy in a way that doesn’t bail out oil and gas companies and sneak through regulatory cuts and public land giveaways. We should protect workers, clean energy and clean transportation jobs, and our democracy, including the important election taking place on November 3. Sierra Club action alerts can be found here.
2. We can act as watch dogs and hold the administration to account for actions that hurt rather than help public health. For instance, citing coronavirus, the EPA has suspended enforcement of environmental laws. Since air pollution makes people more susceptible to the coronavirus, this just makes the pandemic worse. They are also rolling back fuel efficiency standards that save lives.  Likewise, the Department of Interior is advancing environmental harm while the public is distracted by selling oil and gas leases at fire sale prices, putting someone with a history of opposing worker safety measures in charge of worker safety, shutting down advisory committees, changing rules so oil companies can kill migratory birds without penalty and prohibiting climate change considerations in environmental reviews of projects. What we can do is look for opportunities to comment in opposition to these moves. For instance, the EPA is taking comment until April 17, on a terrible proposal to limit science that can be used in regulatory decisions about public health of all things. You can find more information about what to say in your comment here. Public comment is important for legal pushback and for supporting reversal of these decisions under a different and more competent administration in the future.

The spread of the virus and the subsequent lockdown shows how critical competent government planning and science-based decision-making is. The coronavirus crisis reminds us of why we need government to help us prepare for, respond to and avert disasters, whether they be climate change or pandemics. We destroy government at our peril.