Last week, President Donald Trump ostentatiously donated his salary from the first quarter of his young presidency—$78,333.32 after taxes—to the National Park Service. Before the assembled White House press corps, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke presented the check to Tyrone Brandyburg, superintendent of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. 

The donation won’t go very far, however—especially when Trump is proposing budget cuts to the Interior Department, the parent agency of the Park Service, of $1.5 billion dollars. 

The cuts to the custodians of America’s public lands are just a fraction of what the Trump administration intends for the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump’s preliminary budget proposal for the next fiscal year—a document known as the “skinny budget,” preceding a more detailed version forthcoming in May—would cut the EPA by nearly a third, or $2.6 billion, eliminating a quarter of the agency’s 15,000 jobs. 

The primary target of the proposed cuts (which still need to be okayed by Congress) is anything to do with climate change. Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget, was blunt about that at a White House news briefing: 

“As to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward: We're not spending money on that anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money." 

Consequently, here’s what Trump’s budget cuts would do, to the EPA and other agencies:  

• Eliminate $48 million from the EPA department that conducts vehicle and engine emissions testing (the one that discovered the massive cheating by Volkswagen), cutting its workforce by more than half 

• Cut $70 million from the EPA’s Climate Protection Program, eliminating 14 voluntary partnerships with industry, including EnergyStar, which gave consumers information about the energy efficiency of household appliances; the Natural Gas Partnership, to reduce methane emissions; GreenChill, to reduce the use of greenhouse gases in refrigeration and air conditioning; and SmartWay, a program that sought to lower fuel usage in the trucking industry 

• Cut $44 million from the Office of Research and Development, including all funding for its U.S. Global Change Research Program 

• Zero out the Green Climate Fund, which assists mitigation efforts in countries hard hit by flooding and other effects of climate change 

• Disband the Climate Change Adaptation Program 

• Eliminate the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E, the office that gave us the internet); its weatherization assistance program; and half of its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

• Reduce the entire budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by 20 percent, including major cuts to its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, whose satellite programs provide crucial data on climate change 

• Cut NASA’s earth science program by $102 million 

Not all of Trump’s cuts target climate change programs, however. His budget also proposes to 

• Slash $289 million from Great Lakes restoration programs and eliminate regional water-quality efforts in Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, Puget Sound, San Francisco Bay, and South Florida 

• Cut $165 from the nonpoint source pollution program, which helps farmers reduce polluted agricultural runoff 

• Cut $1.34 million from the indoor radon program and $2.34 million from the EPA’s radiation program 

• Cut $7.2 million from environmental education, $1.8 million from the Office of Public Engagement, and $2 million from environmental justice programs           

Remember, these proposals are still in the draft stage; the administration’s full budget proposal should be delivered in May and will have to gain congressional approval. Still, the list is clarifying as regards the thinking of an administration that has thus far been notably short on policy successes. The effort to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act failed, tax reform looks unlikely, and “the swamp” remains undrained. But eliminating federal funding for programs to address climate change and pollution, in the administration’s view, is an easy win.

It’s just that everyone else becomes a loser.