Struggle for a Better Post-COVID America Starts Now
As polluters take advantage of crisis, we must push for policies that protect people and the planet
The news looks bleak these days. More people are dying every day from a COVID-19 pandemic that is still weeks away from peaking in the United States. But sadly, we can’t wait for this public health crisis to wane before we start fighting for the economic and environmental reforms we need to protect people, wildlife and our planet.
The fossil fuel and petrochemical industries certainly aren’t waiting — and if we don’t stop their current offensive we’ll all be left with more polluted air and water, increasing plastic flow into our oceans, more oil drilling in our public lands and waters, rising greenhouse gas emissions and more heartbreaking extinctions of imperiled species.
The Trump administration seems more interested in letting polluters off the hook and bailing out the fossil fuel industry than it does in ensuring that hospitals get the ventilators and personal protective equipment they need to care for people infected by the novel coronavirus.
Outrageously, while most of us were hunkering down to slow the spread of this disease, this administration waived pollution-control standards, suspended health and safety rules for industrial operations, held offshore oil lease sales, rolled back mileage standards, tried to suppress a report on a cancer-causing air pollutant, kept building its border wall with Mexico, and allowed dangerous drilling and mining projects to move forward.
And it isn’t just the Trump administration taking advantage of this crisis.
Consider the actions of Formosa Plastics, the multinational conglomerate that illegally polluted Texas waterways with billions of plastic pellets and has now set its sights on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, where it plans to build a massive petrochemical complex in St. James Parish.
On the same day the Louisiana governor announced that the state had the fastest-growing coronavirus infection rate in the world, utility crews showed up to start preparing the site of Formosa’s future plastic plant for construction. Residents stocking up for Louisiana’s stay-at-home order, which was going into effect at 5 p.m. that day encountered a roadblock at the site and saw the crew digging.
After outraged opponents complained and the media started covering the controversy, Formosa issued a stop-work order the next afternoon — but it promised only to stop work until mid-April, blaming the stoppage on the current Mississippi River flood risk and insisting its “essential” work can defy the coronavirus shutdown orders.
Even though Formosa’s proposed ethane cracker plant will mostly produce plastic for packaging, polyester clothing, cars and playground equipment, according to its website, company officials started shamelessly claiming it would produce personal protective gear now needed by medical professionals. So not only have they suddenly added a new product to their previous list — they’re inexplicably claiming a plant that will take years to build will help fight COVID-19.
We need to see the claims by Formosa and other fossil fuel companies for what they are: misleading diversions by a desperate industry looking for ways to keep making money while the world struggles to address climate change.
Now is the time to end the massive taxpayer subsidies of the fossil fuel industry, not create new ones. We need that money to rebuild our economy in a way that takes climate change into account. We need strict new pollution standards for the petrochemical industry and to block proposed plastic-making plants from coming online, not exempt them from the current lockdown.
We should stop to appreciate how clean the air around our biggest cities has become during the economic slowdown and enact policies that will prevent it from becoming dirtier than ever. And we need to curb polluters, not try to expand these dirty industries and roll back environmental enforcement.
There’s a direct connection between public health and environmental health. By doing what it takes to save endangered species and their habitat, we improve conditions for all life on this planet, including our own.
This pandemic will pass, but if we don’t use this opportunity to better regulate industry and protect vital resources, the days, years and generations to come will still look bleak.
