MEMO: Trump campaign launch in Florida exploits a state whose future he is threatening

Donald Trump is kicking off his reelection campaign with events in Orlando and Miami, Florida today.

Here’s some of what his campaign won’t tell you: Trump is hell bent on making the people of Florida suffer the ravages of the climate crisis, and has sought for years to do everything he can to open up Florida's coasts and beaches to the ravages of oil spills and drilling. He’s also endangering the people and places of Florida in countless other ways with his destructive anti-environmental agenda.

TRUMP’S ASSAULT ON FLORIDA, IN BRIEF:

• Climate Crisis & Denial

• Offshore Drilling & Spills

• Defunding Everglades Restoration

• Removing Coal Ash Protections
  
  

CLIMATE CRISIS & DENIAL

Trump continues to make the United States a global laughingstock and pariah by denying the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is driving the climate crisis.

Indeed TOMORROW Trump’s EPA will release the final version of its Dirty Power Plan designed to gut climate action and the first national safeguards against carbon pollution. Among other things, as reported by the New York Times, EPA is cooking the numbers in an effort to cover up the health cost of this rollback -- an estimated 1,400 deaths every year as a result of this attack on climate action and clean air: “The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution”

TRUMP’S ASSAULT ON CLIMATE ACTION - SOME OF THE WORST HITS

-Abandoning the Paris Climate Agreement, leaving America isolated
-Gutting the Clean Power Plan, the first national plan to tackle carbon pollution in the electric sector
-Attacking and weakening national vehicle emissions standards
-Removing methane protections
-A Failed attempt to subsidize coal plants, the largest source of carbon pollution

Friday scandal: Trump’s views are so radical that the person he put in charge of climate change and clean air programs at the EPA was just caught giving a secret presentation and Q/A session to a fringe climate denial organization.

FLORIDA’S VULNERABILITY

Trump does not care in the slightest that Florida is especially vulnerable to the ravages of rising seas, soaring temperatures, and the spread of tropical disease -- for him it’s all just another inconvenience in the way of letting his fossil fuel industry allies make a quick buck.

Florida Flooding:

As reported by the Miami Herald, “Florida stands to lose more homes — and real estate value — to sea level rise damage than any other state in the nation this century, according to a new study.

“By 2045, nearly 64,000 homes in Florida face flooding every other week. Half of those are in South Florida. … By the end of the century, Florida’s number of at-risk homes jump from 64,000 to a million. In 2100, the report said, about 1 in 10 homes in Florida will face flooding every other week.”

Heat Wave Deaths:

As reported by NBC News this week, new research shows that Miami could see up to 2,300 deaths resulting from a single heat wave in a warmer world.

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE HORIZON:

According to facts from the National Climate Assessment, released during the Trump administration:

• MILLIONS OF AMERICANS AT RISK OF RELOCATION DUE TO SEA LEVEL RISE: “Sea level rise might reshape the U.S. population distribution, with 13.1 million people potentially at risk of needing to migrate due to a SLR of 6 feet (about 2 feet less than the Extreme scenario) by the year 2100.” NCA, Page 335

• BILLIONS WORTH OF REAL ESTATE BELOW SEA LEVEL: “Recent economic analysis finds that under a higher scenario (RCP8.5), it is likely (a 66% probability, which corresponds to the Intermediate-Low to Intermediate sea level rise scenarios) that between $66 billion and $106 billion worth of real estate will be below sea level by 2050; and $238 billion to $507 billion, by 2100.” NCA, Page 330

• DESTRUCTIVE FLOODING FROM HIGH TIDE EVENTS: “For much of the U.S. Atlantic coastline, a local sea level rise of 1.0 to 2.3 feet (0.3 to 0.7 m) would be sufficient to turn nuisance high tide events into major destructive floods. … Relative to the year 2000, sea level is very likely to rise 1 to 4 feet (0.3 to 1.3 m) by the end of the century (medium confidence). Emerging science regarding Antarctic ice sheet stability suggests that, for higher scenarios, a rise exceeding 8 feet (2.4 m) by 2100 is physically possible” NCA, Page 99 & 106

• CORAL EXTINCTION: “Warming has led to mass bleaching and/or outbreaks of coral diseases. The loss of recreational benefits from coral reefs in the United States is expected to reach $140 billion by 2100.” NCA, Page 280; “At [concentrations of atmospheric CO2 at] 450–500 ppm, reef erosion could exceed calcification, meaning that reef structure is likely to erode and coral cover is likely to decline dramatically. Beyond 500 ppm, corals are not expected to survive.” NCA, Page 829

• VIRUS & DISEASE SPREAD: “The geographic range and distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests are projected to shift as climate changes, which could expose more people in North America to ticks that carry Lyme disease and mosquitoes that transmit viruses such as West Nile, chikungunya, dengue, and Zika.” NCA, Page 57

OFFSHORE DRILLING & SPILLS

Despite assurances from disgraced former Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke that offshore drilling would be off limits in Florida -- after they had previously included it -- POLITICO reported in April that Donald Trump was “upset” by that announcement, and that industry lobbyists have confirmed that “For all intents and purposes, it’s done” -- and drilling in Florida would be included in Trump’s upcoming nationwide plan. After fierce political pushback, the plan was temporarily shelved.

Either way, it’s clear that Trump's drilling obsession could cost him in 2020. Many Republican politicians, including some of Trump’s biggest supporters in Florida, have opposed offshore drilling off their shores. According to POLITICO, Trump supporter Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), says that if Trump succeeds in pushing offshore drilling in Florida, “He would have a price to pay for that.”

Yoho recognizes that Florida voters are deeply opposed to offshore drilling (64 - 29 percent, according to a March Quinnipiac poll) which could make Trump’s plan politically toxic for him.

This is a toxic reminder that Trump is willing to sacrifice the health and safety of Floridians, along with their tourism and fishing industries, just to help a few politically powerful oil companies make a quick profit.

DEFUNDING EVERGLADES RESTORATION

In May, Donald Trump walked back his own March budget proposal to slash funding for the Army Corps of Engineers and its Everglades restoration projects. Florida lawmakers urged Trump to retract budget cuts that would have derailed programs to build much needed pumps and reservoirs that will help stem the flow of polluted runoff that contributed to the toxic algae blooms and red tides which spread across Florida last summer.

Trump has initiated countless rollbacks of clean water and air protections that put key natural landscapes like the Everglades at risk of catastrophic breakdown. Trump’s rollbacks are specifically designed to help fossil fuel interests use these national treasures as a low-cost dumping ground for their pollution.

Fundamentally, the Everglades are at risk of ecological collapse due to climate change and Donald Trump’s failure to take appropriate action would be a massive blow to any efforts to restore this critical landscape. Trump was forced to agree to fund the Army Corps of Engineers and their Everglades restoration projects merely to convince Florida voters that he is listening to their environmental concerns, not because he wants to save America’s largest tropical wilderness that protects Floridians from flooding and provides habitat to Florida’s most iconic wildlife.

REMOVING COAL ASH PROTECTIONS

Meanwhile, Trump’s attacks on important coal ash protections are provoking new concerns for Florida’s Puerto Rican community. A toxic coal ash site in Puerto Rico, which became a flashpoint after Hurricane Maria, is being relocated to Osceola, FL, home to the second-largest group of Puerto Ricans who moved to the state following the devastation of the hurricane.

What’s clear is that Donald Trump destructive environmental agenda is a threat to all Floridians -- and Americans -- from all backgrounds and communities, and that none of these policies will do him any favors in 2020.