To some, progress is so threatening that even bicycles are targets
Seventy-one years ago, Yale-educated William F. Buckley, Jr. launched what has been called “the intellectual beacon of the conservative movement,” the magazine National Review. In his publisher’s statement, he wrote of the new weekly: “It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
The comment is revealing about the nature of conservatism. Many in the movement, it seems, put stumbling blocks in the way of progress, holding that the good old ways are inevitably best.
But what if the old ways really aren’t so good? What if they pollute our waterways and endanger our health? Even conservative darling Richard M. Nixon recognized such problems when he created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.
So why is it that the same EPA is now moving to roll back a three-year-old rule that requires coal-fired power plants to prevent the release of toxic heavy metals into streams and rivers through polluted groundwater? Do conservatives really want our waterways tainted with poisonous heavy metals?
“The AI and data center revolution is creating an electricity and baseload power demand that cannot be met under the overly restrictive policies of past administrations,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement quoted by the Associated Press. “The Trump EPA will continue doing its part to address these burdensome regulations on the coal-fired power plant sector that hold American communities back from the new opportunities presented by this new 21st century energy reality.”
As AP reported, this plan is the latest step that Donald J. Trump’s administration has taken to pull back regulations on coal mining and coal-fired power and to empower fossil fuels as a primary energy source to feed the rapid growth of artificial intelligence data centers. But one wonders: why do the Trumpies so love fossil fuels, despite the planet-wide threat they pose?
Their efforts go well beyond yelling “Stop.” They are assailing environmental progress, turning back the clock.
Whether this involves contempt for electric vehicles, shutting down offshore wind farms or dismantling federal efforts in climate science with such moves as shutting down the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, Trump and his minions are seeking to peel back any gains society has made in going green.
At times, their efforts plunge into the absurd. The Trumpists, for instance, don’t seem to like bikes.
Last year the Trump Administration canceled grants for street safety measures, pedestrian trails and bike lanes in communities around the country. As Bloomberg News reported, the problem for the Trumpies was that the projects weren’t designed for cars.
A San Diego County road project that included bike lanes “appears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,” a U.S Department of Transportation official wrote, rescinding a $1.2 million grant it awarded nearly a year before, according to the news outlet. In Fairfield, Ala., converting street lanes to trail space on one road was also deemed “hostile” to cars, and “counter to DOT’s priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.”
And in Boston, the administration pulled back a grant to improve walking, biking and transit in the Mattapan Square neighborhood in a way that would change the “current auto-centric configuration.”
With such bureaucratese, one wonders whether the officials also have trouble with basic English.
Sometimes, conservatives justify their moves by arguing the costs of protections are too high or thwart development. But sometimes, they just seem afflicted by a weird nostalgia, such as for gas-powered cars, or animus toward blue states. Such sentiments seem to underlay the recently filed Trump administration lawsuit against California over limits on tailpipe emissions.
“Gavin Newsom is determined to continue pushing Democrats’ radical E.V. fantasy — even if doing so is illegal,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement quoted by The New York Times. He referred, of course, to Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat likely to run for president and a frequent critic of Trump.
As the newspaper reported, the Trump administration has moved to slash federal support for electric vehicles, which do not emit planet-warming pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency has erased limits on greenhouse gases from vehicle tailpipes, and Trump signed a law last year eliminating a tax credit of up to $7,500 that had been available to people who bought a new electric car.
As has long been true, rightists often point to economics justify their defenses of the status quo. The current crew pair that with a loathing for the Biden Administration.
“Oppressive, expensive electric vehicle mandates drive up costs for American consumers and violate federal law,” former Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time the suit against California was filed. “California is using unlawful policies from the last administration to create exorbitant costs for their citizens.”
But their efforts often fly in the face of common sense and science. For instance, the Omaha Public Power District has long planned to retire three of five power plants in north Omaha and switch the other two from coal-fired to natural gas. Nebraska’s rightwing Attorney General filed suit last fall to block the moves, though.
As reported by the Nebraska Examiner, AG Mike Hilgers said, “we should not be taking one electron off the grid.”
Hilgers’ 46-page lawsuit seeks to stop the changes, as well as prevent OPPD from pursuing any policy that prioritizes considerations other than price or reliability, including “environmental justice.” Residents of predominantly Black north Omaha have long complained of health risks from the plants, including asthma and respiratory issues.
The OPPD is a publicly owned utility that serves more than 900,000 people across 13 counties in eastern Nebraska, a region that includes Omaha.
As the Examiner reported, in 2014 and 2016, OPPD directors agreed to a plan that, by 2023, OPPD would retire the three North Omaha units in operation since the 1950s and switch the other two in operation since the 1960s from coal to natural gas. The oldest three units switched to natural gas in 2016. The plan was delayed in 2022 and then made contingent upon the construction of two new power-producing stations.
Why this conservative attachment to coal? Why this penchant for sticking with the status quo when harms have long been known?
Encouragingly, the power district in overwhelmingly red Nebraska could be in for changes in leadership that could make for progress. Three renewable energy advocates are advancing toward a fall general election and if they win, they and two other like-minded incumbents, would dominate the district board.
As The Downballot reported, the trio includes former state Sen. Carol Blood, the Democrats’ unsuccessful nominee for governor in 2022 who also lost a run for Congress in the conservative 1st District last cycle. The other is education professor Mark Gudgel, who failed in running for Omaha mayor in 2021. The third is attorney and school administrator Sara Kohen, who narrowly lost a bid for the Omaha City Council in 2021.
When they are defeated in high-profile runs, going for lower-profile utility regulatory posts might give such progressives toeholds for bigger offices later on. But, more important in the short run, they also could help restore environmental gains.
Environmentalists cheered in another red state, Arizona, when renewable energy supporters won an election to take charge of a Phoenix electrical utility company. In Georgia, a couple Democrats scored landslide victories last year in special elections for their state’s Public Service Commission, and Democrats now have the opportunity to flip the third seat they need to win control of the body this fall, The Downballot reported.
It will take a couple major elections to unseat those on the federal level who out of sentiment, nostalgia or just ignorance irrationally cling to the often-flawed past. But as the Nebraska, Arizona and Georgia elections demonstrate, grassroots victories in sometimes little-noted posts can help.
Sometimes, people who stand athwart history get steamrolled. Perhaps the time for that is long overdue.