The implementation of climate and environmental policy may become more challenging during the Trump administration, but the fight is far from over, according to one national environmental advocate.
Ramón Cruz is the former president of the environmental group Sierra Club. He is also a visiting professor in the policy school at Princeton University.
Cruz visited Illinois State University on Monday for a guest speaker event that featured a panel to talk to students exploring career paths in policy advocacy. Cruz specializes in environment, climate and sustainability advocacy.
His message to students at ISU was something he said he also talked about in one of his climate justice classes back at Princeton. Cruz said younger generations may take certain environmental laws and agencies for granted and not realize how long they took materialize.
“When you’re an advocate, often you have to kind of like gear up or train for a marathon … it’s not a sprint, otherwise you can get very frustrated because you have ups and downs,” he said. “Even if in this moment, many of the things that were achieved in the last 50 years are being dismantled, the consciousness of many people are still there. You may be on a down moment now, but that doesn’t mean that knowledge is gone.”
Public perception
Although politicians are not the only obstacle. Climate policy does not poll well among the general public, according to Pew Research, making it a challenge to pass legislation.
One example is the Inflation Reduction Act, passed under the Biden administration. While it was a substantial climate bill, the name did not reflect it — a possible attempt to make it more palatable.
Cruz said, though, the change is OK, because the laws are about more than just climate itself.
“The reality is it doesn’t have to be only about climate, because the issue is about the economy, it’s about the future that we want to live in, it’s about the values we want to build an economy based on,” said Cruz. “Right now … we’re at a moment that is very similar to where the U.S. was 150 years ago, or a bit more, when the engine of the economy was supposed to be slavery.”
Cruz drew a parallel between how the U.S. economy changed after the Civil War to how he thinks it will change now. Whereas the innovation of technology to make up for slave labor created the industrial revolution, the move away from fossil fuels will change our economy and industry as well.
Cruz said the U.S. had the chance to lead the charge — a chance which he said is now fleeting after Republican cuts to incentives previously passed under the Biden administration.
“We see China, for example, has done it, and right now if you take the world of electric vehicles, they’re way ahead of the United States. That’s the technology of the future,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense for the U.S. to bet on the technologies and the fuels of the 20th century when the rest of the world is moving to the 21st century.”
Electric vehicles
Cruz said the cuts made by GOP's massive tax cut and spending plan to electric vehicles [EV] and renewable energy like wind and solar will make energy more expensive. He said the U.S. is giving up its authority to the rest of the world which will make the move to clean energy.
“In that regard, it’s very unfortunate what we’re seeing because it is not about climate, it’s also about the economy and about the future of the U.S. leading the world, leading that transition to a cleaner economy,” said Cruz.
As for EVs, Cruz said all manufacturers, including Rivian, will struggle, pointing out their initial layoff of 200 employees after the bill was passed. Previous reporting by WGLT estimated the number of layoffs at approximately 148 workers, though Rivian did not say where they worked.
Cruz said the tax cuts and initiatives EV makers lost now prevent them from carrying the U.S. as a leader in the industry.
“Those are 200 salaries and families that are receiving less in this area,” he said. "It was something that was going to power a lot of that transition, and that was going to make people less dependent on oil … have cars that were more efficient, and it was going to be better in the long run.”
Cruz said the cuts are a big loss for Illinois and Rivian.
Cruz said some of the rhetoric against climate change and environmental policy is powered by lies, making it difficult to implement climate policy. Cruz said the effects of climate change are coming whether we like it or not.
“Time will tell, right?” Cruz said. “Especially in the area where we are and further south where you already see the impacts of climate change everywhere … not only with the intensity of storms that we’re seeing, so many wildfires, the heatwaves that ultimately effect people and claim lives.”
“People can not necessarily support, say, climate legislation, but they will be equally affected by it. It’s not like not believing in climate change will make climate, extreme weather, or disasters going away.”
Cruz said the longer it takes to implement climate policy, the less tools will be available to fight it as it persists.
Another part of the battle in climate legislation is to help the public be more aware of the benefits of clean and renewable energy. Midwesterners may not see it as a matter pertaining to them since discussion on climate often centers around coastal regions.
“When you think of the wind energy production, the incentives that were there under the Inflation Reduction Act benefitted the Midwest the most,” said Cruz. “It is not about climate, it’s about what makes economic sense. And for this region it makes much more economic sense to be putting windmills all over and generating what would be not only renewable but free.”
Cruz said the cuts to clean energy have a direct correlation to the donations and campaign contributions Big Oil and fossil fuel producers made to President Trump and congressional republicans.
However, Cruz acknowledged the not-so-far political past shows environmental issues are not exclusively a Democrat vs. Republican issue.
“You had bedrock laws that were enacted, I must say actually most of them or are all of them during Republican administrations,” he said. “It was the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, was created under Nixon, the same as the National Environmental Policy Act, the same as the Clean Air Act, the same as the Clean Water Act. The revisions to the Clean Air Act, those laws were actually done during George Bush Sr.”
Cruz said the world has started the final chapter of the fossil fuel industry, and that is a leading reason why the laws he called bedrock are being dismantled by the Trump administration.
